166 million year old theropod dinosaur footprints from the Cleveland Basin, Yorkshire, England.
Nationalgeographic.co.id—Paleeontologists report finding footprints of a Jurassic-era carnivorous dinosaur in England. The footprints are 80 cm long, the largest footprints of their kind likely made by ichnogenus Megalosauripusa theropod dinosaur of the Megalosaurus group.
Rare and large dinosaur footprint prints with clawed, padded digits were discovered by local archaeologist Marie Woods in April 2021.
It originates from the Long Nab Member of the Scalby Formation, Cleveland Basin, Yorkshire, England.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I had to do a double take. I’ve seen some of the smaller print when out with friends, but nothing quite like this,” said Woods, co-author of the paper published in Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society.
“I can no longer say that ‘archaeologists don’t make dinosaurs.’ At the time of discovery it generated a lot of public interest and I was overwhelmed with messages on social media from people all over the world.”
The record-breaking footprint was 80 cm long, making it the largest dinosaur footprint of its kind ever found in Yorkshire.
It was made by very large theropod dinosaurs, probably megalosaurids, at least 166 million years ago (Jurassic period).
“Yorkshire’s east coast is known as Dinosaur Beach for a very good reason,” said co-author Mike Romano, a paleontologist at Sheffield University.
“A large number of dinosaur tracks, starting in the thousands, have been found. As a result, this stretch of coastline is considered one of the best places in the world for dinosaur footprints.”
An artist’s impression, the Yorkshire dinosaur tracks were made by a Megalosaurus-like dinosaur.
Although first documented in 1907, it wasn’t until the 1980s that discoveries were regularly reported (by amateurs as well as professional geologists), to date about 25 different types of footprints have been recognized.
“Although these different types do not necessarily represent the same number of different dinosaurs, they do represent a diverse ecosystem of animals including carnivores and herbivores that roamed the Jurassic coastal plains and fluvial complexes around 160-175 million years ago,” he said.
