Merdeka.com – Paleontologists at the Natural History Museum in London, England, say the giant footprints found on the coast of Wales are believed to be the footprints of early dinosaurs more than 200 years ago.
Experts say, the footprints come from the Triassic period, which are thought to belong to a sauropod animal or its relatives.
“We know that early sauropods lived in England at that time, such as the bones found in Camelotia, the earliest sauropod animal, which was found in Somerset in a rock from the same period,” said Dr Susannah Maidment, a paleontologist at the London museum who was involved in the research. in his statement, as reported by the CNN page, Sunday (2/1).
“We don’t know if it was this type of species that made the tracks but there are other clues that suggest it was this kind of animal that made the tracks.”
Maidment and her colleague, professor Paul Barrett, initially saw this photo of the footprints from a photo submitted by an amateur paleontologist in 2020. They were not convinced by the photo.
“We’ve had a lot of requests to track it down but there’s also been a lot of geological finding that’s been misunderstood,” said the Maidment. “But from these photos, we judged it could be footprints and deserve to be seen in person.”
Maidment and Barrett then went to the location of the trail and found that the location had previously been investigated by Cindy Howells, a paleontologist from the National Museum of Wales, a team from France, and a group of researchers from Cardiff University.
“We believe the impressions we saw at the site were indeed animal walking tracks. We also saw shifting mud ripples. This kind of structure is characteristic of slow movement on the ground,” Barrett said in announcing the findings.
The findings also reveal information about how the dinosaurs moved, such as how they walked and moved in herds.
“Traces of this kind are not common in other parts of the world, so we believe this is an interesting find that adds insight into the Triassic period in England. Records of dinosaurs from the Triassic period are very scanty so any finds dating from that period add even more to the picture of what happened. happened in those days,” said Barrett.
The museum said the footprints would be left on the beach until they were erased by sea waves. [pan]
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