An old page of Balochistan
history was unknown to me if I hadn’t happened to visit Pakistan Museum of
Natural History (PMNH) where I found the statue of Baluchitherium. Not only the
Baluchitherium became a new word for me, but also the statue of it and the
history of it appeared new despite having a very long history.
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| Photo online |
Interestingly, Baluchitherium was
the world-largest land mammal ever lived in the universe.
History reveals that a prominent
English paleontologist Sir Clive Forster Cooper discovered the bone of the
largest land mammal in 1910 in Balochistan.
Cooper suggested that the mammal
was the size of dinosaur and dubbed it as Baluchitherium. No further scientific
research was conducted for about a century owing to which Balochitherium
remained an unmarked point.
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| After a long busy day of excavation, Welcomme with the Bugti tribesmen. – Photo courtesy Jean-Loup Welcomme.Photo Daen Newspaper |
Actually Baluchitherium is the
combination of two words Baluchi for Balochistan and therium for the beast
which literally means the beast of Balochistan.
Furthermore, after a long period
of time in the early 1990s, another French Paleontologist namely Jean-Loup
Welcomme also found the fossils of mysterious creatures in Bugti Hills of
Balochistan under the project of “Mission Paleontologique Francaise au
Balochistan”. For the mission, Welcomme first contacted Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti
and told him the entire story of the discovery. Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti not only
welcomed Welcomme and gave him permission, but also helped him (French Team)
with keen interest and courage.
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| Photo online |
Striving very hard until 1997
Welcomme discovered the first finger of the Baluchitherium in a stony valley
near Dera Bugti.
The French Team did the examining
of every major and minor bone. Finally the team stated that the giant creature
was five meter tall and weighed 20 tonnes, almost as massive as the size of
three large elephants and survived from 30 million to 20 million years ago.
Also, the French team discovered
about 20,000 fossils of mammals only from and around the areas of Dera
Bugti.
A worth point is that it has been
stated by the scientists that Balochistan could be the mother land of all
animal groups including humans; nevertheless, it needs more scientific
research. One can judge the enrichment of Baloch land from this point that only
five percent of Dera Bugti has been searched so for.
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