FRANCE: German scientists have found an unusually long trail of footprints from a 30-tonne dinosaur in an abandoned quarry in Lower Saxony, a discovery they think could be around 145 million years old.
Annette Richter, Lower Saxony State Museum’s paleontologist, said that, “There are only a few comparable sites worldwide”.
The prehistoric prints are not only big, but also unusually deep.
Scientists say the tracks belonged to a long-necked dinosaur and are about 1.20 metres in diameter and stretch over 50 metres. Judging by the depths of its footprints (43 centimetres into the ground), they assumed that the dinosaur would have weighed between 25 and 30 tonnes and had a long neck. “They left behind elephant-like footprints”, Englich said. Englich said no complete skeleton exists yet for this big dinosaur from this time period. He said that the marks were made on the ground sometime between 135 and 145 million years ago by sauropods, which were heavy dinosaurs with long necks and tails. “That means it’s a species we haven’t seen before from this era”, he said. Scientists are hopeful that this trail can help add to other finds to narrow down the conditions found in the Cretaceous period.
Along with the heavy sauropod, the group additionally discovered the tracks of a therapoda, a carnivorous dinosaur.
