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10-year-old’s curiosity leads to discovery of ancient dinosaur footprints on a beach

Aug 19, 2024 06:11 PM IST

The massive footprints the girl found are thought to have been formed 200 million years ago, from the late Triassic period, according to palaeontologists.

When roaming on the beach, many of us have a habit of picking up shells and stones. 10-year-old UK girl Tegan was also doing the same. However, her curiosity actually led to the discovery of five huge footprints that experts believe belonged to a Camelotia dinosaur that lived there more than 200 million years ago. As per reports, the discovery was made on a beach in South Wales.

The dinosaur footprints were discovered on a beach in South Wales. (Unsplash)
The dinosaur footprints were discovered on a beach in South Wales. (Unsplash)

The massive footprints Tegan found are thought to have been formed 200 million years ago, from the late Triassic period, according to palaeontologists. The imprints are consistent with a left foot, a right foot, and then another left and a right foot spaced 75 centimetres apart. Professionals are still working to confirm the results, reported the BBC. (Also Read: Billionaire shatters auction records by paying $45 million for dinosaur skeleton)

Tegan told the news outlet, "It was so cool and exciting. We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn't think we'd find anything. We found these big holes that looked like dinosaur footprints, so Mum took some pictures and emailed the museum. It was from a long-necked dinosaur."

The foremost dinosaur expert in the United Kingdom region where the footprints were found, Cindy Howells, thinks the footprint is from a Camelotia. These dinosaurs with long necks roamed throughout parts of Europe. However, compared to the expertise held by scientists on other dinosaurs, such as triceratops and the T-rex, relatively little is known about this species. The Camelotia are thought to have been herbivorous creatures that existed in the late Triassic era.

"A camelotia would have stood about 3m (10ft) tall, 4-5m (13-16ft) long and is an early sauropodomorph with a relatively long neck, long tail and walked on two legs but could walk on all four when grazing for food. It's amazing as up until recently, we had so few dinosaur finds in Wales that we didn't think we had much in the way of dinosaurs here," said Howells to BBC.

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