A 10-year-old schoolgirl shocked experts when she unearthed dinosaur footprints while playing on a beach during a summer holiday outing.
The young girl, named only Tegan, believed the footprints could date back to prehistoric times, and her mother, Claire, contacted paleontologists to find out.
Museum experts believe the five footprints, found near Penarth in south Wales, are more than 200 million years old and could belong to a dinosaur called Camoltia, part of the suborder Sauropodomorpha.
Tegan, from Pontardawe, near Swansea, said: ‘It was great and exciting.
We were just looking to see what we could find and we didn’t think we would find anything.
Tegan was walking along the beach when she saw a series of similarly shaped holes in the rocky shore.
Tegan believed the footprints could date back to prehistoric times, and her mother Claire contacted paleontologists to find out.
Museum experts believe the five footprints, found near Penarth in south Wales, are more than 200 million years old.
The footprints are so large that they would have to have come from a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorph, experts say.
“We found big holes that looked like dinosaur tracks, so Mom took some pictures, emailed the museum, and it was from a long-necked dinosaur.”
This stretch of coastline is a favourite with fossil hunters and is close to where four-year-old Lily Wilder found another perfectly preserved footprint in 2021.
Palaeontologist Cindy Howells, from the National Museum of Wales, inspected the marks left on the rock and said she was “pretty sure they are genuine dinosaur footprints”.
Cindy told BBC programme The Dinohunters: ‘We’ve got five footprints and we’re talking about half a metre to three quarters of a metre between each one.
‘These footprints are so large that they would have to be from a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorph.
‘If they were random holes, we would be careful, but since we have a left foot, a right foot, and then a left foot and a right foot… there is a constant distance between them.
“It’s a very significant find. The excitement that occurs when someone contacts us to confirm the discovery of a dinosaur is amazing.”
He added: “We believe these footprints were made by a reasonably large herbivorous dinosaur.”
‘While we don’t have any bones here, similar dinosaur bones were found across the Bristol Channel.
‘A camelotia would have been about 3 m tall, 4–5 m long and is an early sauropodomorph with a relatively long neck, long tail and walked on two legs, but could walk on all fours when grazing for food.’
Tegan’s mother Claire added: “It’s hard to comprehend that you’re walking along the same beach where hundreds of millions of years ago there was a huge prehistoric animal,” she said.
“You can spend your whole life looking for dinosaur treasures, so for Tegan to be able to do it at this age is fantastic.”
Tegan’s mum Claire said: “You can spend your whole life hunting for dinosaur treasures, so for Tegan to be able to do it at this age is brilliant.”
Palaeontologist Cindy Howells, from the National Museum of Wales, inspected the marks left on the rock and said she was “pretty sure they are genuine dinosaur footprints”.
Similar dinosaur bones were found on the other side of the Bristol Channel
Cindy Howells claims that these footprints were made by a reasonably large herbivorous dinosaur.
Tegan said: “It was really fun and exciting. We were just looking around to see what we could find, but we didn’t think we would find anything.”
This stretch of coastline is a favourite with fossil hunters and is close to where four-year-old Lily Wilder found another perfectly preserved footprint in 2021.
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