Fascinating and scary, India’s own Jurassic Park
Suman Bajpai
Gujarat has a lot to offer to visitors. A colourful culture, myriad traditions, historic and archaeological marvels, places oozing spirituality… the list is endless. Along with several such attractions, a dinosaur museum, India’s first, and a fossil park, third-largest in the world, are also quite popular among the visitors. Situated at Raioli village near Balasinor town, the museum and park are around 115 km from the state capital, Gandhinagar. Raioli, it is believed, was a fertile breeding ground for many species of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
You get a strong sense of the era gone by long ago right away— a huge dinosaur replica stands at the entrance, sending shivers down your spine. And as you enter the museum, the whole ambience created to give you the feel of the extinct world leaves you mesmerised. You will see sculptures of many dinosaurs in a make-believe forest. The whole environment reminds you of the Hollywood blockbuster Jurassic Park, and you actually start seeing dinosaurs roaming around freely here through your mind’s eye. Nearly 50 sculptures of dinosaurs, including Rajasaurus Narmadensis, the indigenous breed that can be called the king of dinosaurs, have been built here. They all are of different shapes and sizes, and give visitors some idea about their habits and habitat.
Imagination goes wild
The museum, spread in an area over 25,000 sq. feet, has ten galleries. These galleries have exclusive 3-D film presentations in Gujarati and English. In other galleries, you will find presentations on the dinosaurs of India and Gujarat and fossil exhibits, taking you back into the world of wonder. Your imagination goes wild when you see the posters and sculptures, eggs and various other things related to that amazing specie. The foyer depicts an exact replica of their habitat, taking you to the world that existed 65 million years back. There’s also a time machine, a 3-D film, an interactive and amusing kid’s area, a vivid display of Mesozoic times, souvenir shop, etc.
Fossil park
Not too far away is the fossil park. Fossil remains, bones and eggs have been excavated here since the 1980s. Princess Aliya Sultana Babi of the erstwhile ruling family of Balasinor played a pivotal role in making the park what it is today. More than 10,000 dinosaur eggs were found in the area, ranging from the size of eggs to canon ball.
During the 1980s, palaeontologists accidentally found fossil remains and bones in the village of Raioli. Ever since, many excavations have taken place in the area. Findings revealed that there were more than 13 species of dinosaurs, the most prominent being a squat, thick-legged, heavy-bodied carnivorous dinosaur with a crested horn, Rajasaurus Narmandensis. (Raja because of its crested horn; the second part of the name came from the geographical location — close to river Narmada).
Second largest hatchery
A visit to this Balasinor fossil park, stretching across 428 hectares, leaves you spellbound. Studies say the fossils here are at least 65.5 million years old and thousands of dinosaurs are buried here. Fossils here are from the Cretaceous age. Excavators believe the site was probably a nesting ground for dinosaurs as many fossilised eggs, huddled in nests, have been found here. One can spot a femur, pelvic bones, a knee, cranial cavity, a spine, and other unidentified bones here.
The exceptional thing about this site is that it has both a hatchery and a graveyard. In 1981–82, during geological field mapping, two geologists from the Geological Survey of India (GSI), Ahmedabad, discovered rounded, ball-like structures in the large pit of limestone bed. To know what exactly they were, they made thin sections and compared them with known dinosaur eggshells from North America and Europe, and were convinced that the ball-like structures were indeed fossilized dinosaur eggs. More excavations were done after that and a new species, Rajasaurus Narmadensis, was found, having a braincase with an unusual protrusion in the form of a head-crest, which is first of its kind reported only from India. A fossilised 3.5m long prehistoric snake (Sanajeh indicus) that got fossilised in an exceptional setting, wrapped inside a sauropod dinosaur nest, indicates that snakes used to prey on dinosaurs’ hatchlings. You can also witness a six-metre tall replica of Rajasaurus Narmadensis, made of mud, cement and metal, with a brass exterior.
And as you walk out of the museum, into the real world, you still can’t get those replicas out of your mind.
