Rice originated in India

THE fight where and when rice originated has taken a new turn. An analysis of plant remains found in the dung of dinosaurs in Pisdura village of Chandrapur district in Maharashtra has revealed that dinosaurs had relished the staple much before humans added it to their diet. This pushes the origin of rice 35 million years back and raises the possibility that it had an Indian parent. Till now it was believed that rice originated about 30 million years ago in China.

“The fresh evidence also suggests that grass family Poaceae from which rice tribe Oryza originated much earlier than thought, and was quite evolved and diversified during the late Cretaceous period when dinosaurs thrived,” says Bandana Samant, paleopalynologist at RTM Nagpur University and co-author of the study. This fact, she says, also pushes back the evolution of angiosperms “The origin may be during the Triassic period instead of the Jurassic period.”