Caletodraco cotardi. Literally “the dragon of Calètes and Cottard”. This is the Latin name of a new 100-million-year-old carnivorous dinosaur, found at the foot of the limestone cliffs of Saint-Jouin-Bruneval (Seine-Maritime), recently described in Fossil studies. It pays tribute to both a Celtic village in the Caux region and Nicolas Cottard, author of the discovery. For this high school physics teacher, seeing his name associated with a dinosaur is “recognition of the life of an amateur paleontologist”.
He is now 59 years old and is dedicated to fossils. “A passion transmitted by a primary school teacher and that is still as alive as when I discovered my first micraster, a heart-shaped sea urchin. » Their new discovery is not entirely accidental. Nicolas Cottard is one of the enlightened fans. “We can define ourselves as such if when we turn to a scientist of international rank we receive a response”said.
This is precisely his case: he corresponds with researchers from Belgium, Germany, England and even the Netherlands on crabs, starfish and other echinoderms, some of which also bear his name. He is a specialist in the Cenomanian, a geological period that goes from approximately -100 million to -94 million years ago. Together with Jérôme Girard, another amateur, and the geologist Bernard Hoyez, they even wrote impressive monographs on the subject, the result of patient field studies in Upper Normandy.
“We always return to these cliffssays Nicolas Cottard. It was during one of these vigils that I discovered, on a block Fallen remains of vertebrates, on a string of pebbles washed by the tide and rain. » It was in 2021. His partner Jérôme Girard tackled the 60 kilos of stone with a chisel and a grinder. Called to the bedside of the patiently excavated bones, paleontologists Eric Buffetaut (CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure) and Javier Parraga (Muséum du Havre) doubted the interpretation. Flying reptile? Dinosaur?
Rare on chalk cliffs
In 2023, in the same place, Nicolas Cottard finds another block of the same animal. This time the diagnosis can be made by Eric Buffetaut. It is a carnivorous dinosaur, a particularly rare specimen on the chalk cliffs. “At that time the sea was 150 meters above the current level, and in these strata we found mainly marine animals”recalls Nicolas Cottard.
Therefore, we can assume that the dinosaur died on land, in the Armoric Massif or in Cornwall, before being transported to the sea (by a river, a flood?) and then by currents until it sank and was buried in sediments. . “But what is exceptional about the discovery is that the furileusaurs, to which it is linked, were only known in South America.underlines Nicolas Cottard. Which raises interesting questions about its origin. »
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