In one of the schools in the Australian city of Biloel, for 20 years there was a stone with characteristic cavities. Throughout this time, what are these strange traces were in the head, but nobody asked scientists about it. Only recently it turned out that they belonged to dinosaurs, which lived in this place hundreds of millions of years ago.
Contemporary stone history dates back to 2002. Miners, who carried out work in Banana, Queensland, unearthed him and did not know what was on it, gave him a school in a small town of Biloel. The authorities of the facility set up a piece of rock around the pitch, where for over 20 years he “collected dust”. Finally, someone came up with the idea to ask paleontologists what these strange cavities are.
A fragment of a stone with paws of a dinosaurDr. Anthony Romilio/The University of Queensland
Anthony Romilio from the University of Queensland was called in. The man said that traces were dinosaur prints from the Jurassic period.
– When I entered the parking lot, I immediately noticed one of those stones that stops drivers from entering the lawn. I saw clear dinosaur prints. My jaw dropped – he said.
Romilio said that there were 66 prints dated to about 200 million years. Belonged to dinosaurs of the genre Anomoepus scambus. The scientist explained that it was a small, stocky and two -legged herbivore. He added that the traces of paws belong to 47 different individuals, which went through a piece of wet, white clay, probably following or traveling through the water route.
The results of the observation of his and his team appeared a few days ago in the scientific journal Historical Biology.
– Fossible prints, although they are the most numerous remains of dinosaurs, are often overlooked by many researchers. They are not as attractive to us as bones, for example – added Romilio.
Stone with paws of dinosaur – fragmentDr. Anthony Romilio/The University of Queensland
“They may be unnoticed for years, even being in view”
The scientist added that some school staff guessed what was on stone, but they thought it was “a replica, not a real specimen.”
– They suspected that they were paws of dinosaurs. But they were not able to penetrate it in detail, just like me, he explained.
Stone with prints on the school groundsDr. Anthony Romilio/The University of Queensland
Research on a stone plate with printsDr. Anthony Romilio/The University of Queensland
The research revealed that it was the stone that is “one of the biggest concentration of the traces of dinosaurs” that has ever been found in Australia.
– Most of the fossils of dinosaurs are not found by paleontologists. Ordinary people find them – he said. – [Kamień] This is an unprecedented picture of the number, movement and behavior of dinosaurs from the time when no petrified dinosaur residues were found in Australia. Such fossils can be unnoticed for years, even in view. It is amazing that such a rich story rested at the school for such a long time – he concluded.
AFP, University of Queensland
Source of the main photo: Dr. Anthony Romilio/The University of Queensland