ULAN BATOR, June 27 (Xinhua) -- A man was arrested in Mongolia's capital Ulan Bator over illegal possession of a rare dinosaur fossil, according to local police.

The man hid the 80-million-year-old fossil of a protoceratops in his cottage and planned to sell it.

The police seized the fossil and handed it over to the Institute of Paleontology and Geology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences.

The details of the fossil have not been made public. The case is under investigation.

The Protoceratops was a genus of the sheep-sized herbivorous ceratopsian dinosaur during the Upper Cretaceous Period.

Mongolia is known for its large number of dinosaur-related findings.

Under Mongolian law, significant fossil discoveries cannot be exported or sold to non-Mongolians, even if they are privately owned.