People gathered bright and early on Friday morning to catch a glimpse of the first-ever dinosaur fossils found on home soil, as they went on display at the Hong Kong Heritage Discovery Centre in Kowloon Park.

Officials announced earlier this week that dinosaur fossils believed to date back to the Cretaceous period had been discovered on Port Island in the northeastern waters of the SAR.

Chong Got was the first to arrive for the opening of the display.

“I don’t know about it actually, that’s why I’m coming here to learn from it. It’s amazing to see the fossils. When I was young, going to the museum, to the souvenir shop, and looking at this small, tiny piece of stone, and then you could find the fossil of a silhouette of, like, a beetle or a shell. It’s already amazing enough,” he said.

“Here we are talking about dinosaurs. I don’t know how many millions of years now. So it really would be an amazing opportunity for me, to open my eyes.”

Also at the exhibition was Rick Dong who said he has seen dinosaur fossils in other museums, but was excited to see the first found in Hong Kong.

“It’s a very good opportunity for the local citizens to come here to see this fossil. And with the development, I think we’ll have more fossils to develop and be shown here for the citizens to see,” he said.

“[It’s a] very good operation, because for science, there’s no boundary. We should work together with the scientists from all over the world to develop and do research.”

Gavin Kwai had taken his six-year-old son Joshua to the exhibition, saying it was an educational opportunity.

“It’s a very good chance for them to learn… When we went to, like, the Science Park’s exhibition beforehand about dinosaurs, sometimes they asked us if we are going to see dinosaurs in Hong Kong or if we are going to discover some. Or they will ask us if it was discovered in Hong Kong and where it was in Hong Kong,” he said.

“But like beforehand, we usually disappointed them by saying, ‘It’s from other countries, you are not likely to find something like this in Hong Kong.’ It’s very amazing this time that we can really truly discover something in Hong Kong.”

History lover Nitin Gupta said he didn't know much about dinosaurs, but was glad there were staff available to explain the fossils to him.

Ringo Ng, assistant curator of archaeological preservation at the centre, said staff will be arranged to provide explanations from time to time, but they hope to have guides stationed there in the future.