10:19, September 18, 2007
Cuban scientists have found a series of fossils they believe to be
between 18 and 20 million years old in the central Cuban province of
Sancti Spiritus, the island's Caving Society said on Monday.
The fossils are the remains of dugongs and giant crocodiles that lived
in the area in the Miocene period, the fourth era of the Tertiary age,
which began 23 million years ago and ended 5 million years ago, it said.
The fossils were found in a cave close to the banks of the Cayajana
River, 350 km east of Havana. The scientists made the find 30 meters
below the slope eroded by the river, considered a highly valuable area
by scientists seeking fossils.
The Caribbean's oldest fossils, including a giant sloth, giant
ostriches, a shark and several dugongs, were also found by the same
research group in the 1970s in Domo Zaza, a paleontological site also in
Sancti Spiritus province.
Source: Xinhua
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