Big prints lifted in Winton
Print
Another ground-breaking prehistoric discovery has been made in the Queensland town of Winton.
The town has again cemented its reputation as a palaeontologist's paradise with the discovery of footprints from a number of dinosaurs preserved in a muddy creek bed for 95 million years.
Palaeontologist Dr Stephen Poropat says he has never seen anything like it before.
“We're dealing with front footprints that are about half-a-metre wide, back footprints about a metre long,” he said.
“They are completely distinctive from all the rest of the Sauropod footprints that have been found anywhere else in the world.”
Sauropods were herbivorous dinosaurs known for their incredible size and long necks.
The footprints are stamped into mud slabs that are now being slowly and carefully extracted to be preserved. Some of the mud strips are over 50 metres long.