A screengrab image of Benjamin Ingel, a 13-year-old who discovered a dinosaur tooth.
JOHANNESBURG – Knysna has landed itself prominently on the archeaological map.
Thirteen-year-old Grade 8 pupil, Benjamin Ingel discovered a tooth there -- and it very likely comes from a dinosaur.
Ingel reportedly found the tooth while walking near Knysna lagoon. He brought it home to show his family.
Ingel's grandfather, Vernon Rice, approached some experts to verify the authenticity of the find. Geologists Rob Muir and Roger Schoon agreed to come to his house to have a look.
Rice said: "They took one look and I could see from their faces we had something."
Palaeontologist, Robert Gess at the Albany Museum in Grahamstown invited Ben and his grandfather to the museum to allow palaeontologists to examine the specimen more closely.
Wits University palaeontologist Jonah Choiniere, who has seen photographs of the tooth, believes that it is about 140 million years old and belonged to a carnivorous theropod.
Choiniere believes the dinosaur weighed between 500kg and a ton.
"This was a meat-eater of considerable size; his head would bump on the ceiling of my house," said palaeontologist Dr Billy de Klerk, who has also seen the tooth.
"These teeth are so rare that in a span of 30 years I have only seen 15 decent teeth," De Klerk added.
Ingel is prepared to donate the tooth to a museum after he shows it to his friends at school.
