Dinosaur footprints dating back to 100 million years ago were discovered in a rock formation in Italy by a former geologist who stumbled upon the incredible find.
Vincenzo Colonna, 88, a retired geologist at the University of Bari, made the discovery by accident in Santo Spirito, Bari, while taking a walk along the coast, Italian news outlet Barinedita reported.
The five fossilized footprints date back to the Lower Cretaceous period and the fingers of the dinosaur can also be seen clearly embedded in the rock. The footprints are all within walking distance of each other, according to the news outlet.
It is likely that the footprints belonged to an ankylosaurus. This species lived 100 million years ago in what is now Bari.
The Ankylosaurus was a large herbivorous dinosaur, meaning it did not eat meat. They are from the clade Ornithischia and had a bulky build and short, strong limbs.
Ankylosauruses also had large shell-like armor on their backs, not dissimilar to modern-day turtles. For this reason, they are also known as "armored dinosaurs." Their shells were made up of small and large bony plates that surrounded its back.
"The seabed at the time was shallow, here they came to look for food; so they left their footprints also due to the fragility of these expanses of debris, which is why today we find the footprints, but we don't see the skeletons of these dinosaurs," Colonna told Il Quotidiano Italiano.
It is not unusual to find fossilized footprints in certain rock formations. When they still roamed the earth, dinosaurs would leave footprints behind when they walked through mud. Over a period of time, the footprints left behind would fill with objects, such as small pebbles or sand. Then, it would harden and mold into rock.
Some of these footprints can then be preserved for millions of years. They can now be seen at the surface as erosion slowly works away at the rock, revealing the footprints once again.
The Late Cretaceous is the younger of the two epochs of the Cretaceous period. Dinosaurs alive during this time are some of the best-known dinosaurs in the world. They include the Tyrannosaurs rex, the pachycephalosaurs, small theropods, and "duckbilled" hadrosaurs.
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Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
