Author: Lynsey Chutel
Published on: 03/01/2025 | 00:00:00
AI Summary:
Quarry workers in England have discovered the clawed footprints of a 30-foot-tall predator and the sunken tracks of other dinosaurs. A trail of five distinct prints were uncovered last summer in a quarry in Oxfordshire, about 60 miles northwest of London, scientists announced to the public this week. The prints belong to both herbivores and carnivors that roamed the area during the Middle Jurassic period, around 166 million years ago. The pattern of humps, each about 10 feet apart, turned out to be the last vestiges of giants who died tens of millions of years ago. Paleontologists from the University of Birmingham and Oxford first visited the site in November 2023, finding clawed, three-toed footprints. Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur ever to be scientifically named and described at Oxford, in 1824. The cetiosaurus is actually stopping to look back at the megalosaurus. The sets of sauropod footprints are also different sizes, showing that the animals might have moved in a herd with juveniles or traveled alongside smaller herbivores. In addition to its swampy features, Jurassic Oxfordshire was also affected by higher sea levels. Researchers analyzed a skull found in Montana of a plant-eating member of the ceratops family, Lokiceratops, finding distinct traits such as curving brow horns. Scientists say that a close relative of Tyrannosaur rex bolsters their case for a distinctive southern population.
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