Experts think footprints discovered on a beach in Wales were left by an early dinosaur more than 200 million years ago. Paleontologists at the Natural History Museum in London said they thought the footprints, dating back to the Triassic period, belonged to a very early sauropod or sauropod relative.
Paleontologist at the museum, Dr. As stated by Susannah Maidment in a statement announcing the findings, “We know that early sauropods lived in England at that time, because bones of a very early sauropod, Camelotia, were found in rocks dating to the same period in Somerset. Another clue that suggests something might have made these marks.”
Images of the tracks on the beach in Penarth were originally sent in 2020 by Maidment and her colleague, Professor Paul Barrett, an amateur paleontologist. At first, they were skeptical of the findings.
“We get lots of samples from the public, but most of them (with traces) are things that can be easily mistaken for geological features,” Maidment said, and continued: “However, from the photos we thought this was a good candidate and would be worth a look.”
The couple collaborated with their colleagues and learned that the site had previously been overseen by Cindy Howells, a paleontologist from the National Museum of Wales, a French team, and a group from Cardiff University.
Maidment and Barrett went to the field to survey the tracks and record the measurements.
“We believed that the impressions we saw at Penarth were consistently spaced to suggest an animal was walking. We also saw displacement rings in which mud was pushed up. These structures are features of active movement on soft ground,” Barrett said in the museum’s announcement of the findings.
Their findings may also reveal information about the behavioral characteristics of dinosaurs, such as how they walked and traveled in packs.
As Barrett says, “Such traces are not particularly common around the world, so we believe this is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Triassic life in the UK. The record of Triassic dinosaurs in this country is quite scarce, so all we can find from the period is what was going on at that time.” adds new information to our picture that it’s over.”
The museum said the footprints will remain on the beach until they are eroded by the tide. . .
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