While out on the beach, a 10-year-old girl finds dinosaur footprints dating back 200 million years.
A simple walk turned into a historic discovery. While walking on a beach in the United Kingdom, a 10-year-old girl accidentally discovered dinosaur footprints that are hundreds of millions of years old, biologists say. BBC This Saturday.
The surprise discovery was made by 10-year-old Tegan on a beach in Penarth, County Glamorgan, Wales. While searching for fossils with her mother, the schoolgirl finally spotted five footprints, believed to be those of Camelotia, a species of dinosaur discovered in the UK and estimated to be around 201 to 205 million years old.
“We were just looking for what we could find, but we didn’t think we would find anything,” Tegan told the BBC. “We discovered they were big holes that looked like dinosaur footprints, so my mum took some photos and emailed the museum and it turned out to be a long-necked dinosaur.”
Unknown type
This is a judgment confirmed by Cindy Howells, a palaeontologist from Cardiff Museum, who specializes in this type of dinosaur that has been spotted in the United Kingdom. She explains to the British channel: “We have five footprints and we are talking about half a metre to three-quarters of a metre between each one.”
“If these holes were random we would be careful, but since we have a left foot and a right foot and then a left foot and a right foot… there is a fixed distance between them,” adds the expert, who plans to write a report on the discovery of the footprints to get the opinion of other experienced paleontologists.
Less well-known than Triceratops or T-Rex, Camelotia was a herbivorous dinosaur that walked on its front legs and hind limbs, the BBC notes. “Camelotia was about 3 metres (10 feet) long and 4 to 5 metres (13 to 16 feet) tall,” and had “a relatively long neck and tail and walked on two legs, but it could walk on all fours to be able to walk.” Cindy Howells adds: “Searching for food.”