About 200 dinosaur footprints have been discovered this summer in the fields of Oxfordshire in southeast England, scientists reported on Thursday. It is the largest site of its kind in the UK. Researchers don’t know what helped preserve the tracks in the fossilized mud.
The footprints were left by five dinosaurs 166 million years ago and were discovered at Dewars Farm. Some of the trails where the artifacts were discovered are 150 meters long. According to the scientists, this area is the “true track of the dinosaurs” because in the Middle Jurassic period, herbivores and carnivorous animals passed through it.
Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Oxford’s Natural History Museum, said: “It’s rare to find fossils in one place and over such a large area.” In his opinion, it could be one of the biggest places in the world.
Kirsty Edgar of the University of Birmingham, who specializes in micropalaeontology, said: “You can go back in time and imagine what it was like when these huge creatures were walking around.”
“It was unreal”
The first fossils were discovered in June this year by Gary Johnson, an excavator operator at a mine owned by Smiths Bletchington. – I realized that I am the first person to see them. He said in an interview with the BBC that it was unreal. Over the following days, around 100 people took part in excavations led by the universities of Oxford and Birmingham.
According to Richard Butler of the University of Birmingham, the tracks in the petrified mud were helped by a sudden frost that preserved the artifacts.
Dinosaur footprints discovered in Oxfordshire Reuters
Zaropodia and Megalosaurus
The four dinosaurs that left their footprints were sauropods, herbivorous dinosaurs that grew up to 18 meters long. Their print is similar to an elephant, but much larger.
The fifth dinosaur is probably Megalosaurus, the largest predator of the Jurassic period in England, which walked on two legs and had three claws clearly impressed on the ground.
Dinosaur footprints discovered in Oxfordshire Ritz
According to the AFP news agency, in 1997, another site with about 40 dinosaur remains was discovered in the same area, but it is currently unavailable, and the information collected at that time is not publicly available.
Main photo source: Reuters
