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Ordinary-looking stepping stones placed outside the house of two brothers in China’s Sichuan province turned out to be 190 million-year-old dinosaur footprints. Scientists have identified a total of 413 footprints, including rare ‘tail drag’ marks. This is considered to be a very important fossil record of the Early Jurassic period.
Such a story has come to light from Wuli, a small village in China’s Sichuan province, which has surprised the local people as well as the scientists. The flat stones that two brothers of the village used outside their house for almost two decades as ordinary ‘stepping stones’, turned out to be actually the footprints of 18-19 crore years old dinosaurs. It all started in 1998, when Ding Bhai was taking out stones from a field. They found some rocks which had shocking ‘chicken claw-like’ marks on them. They thought it was just a strange shape, and they spread those stones outside the house. No one had any idea that there was something beneath his feet which was no less than a treasure for ancient historians and scientists.
How was the real value of the stones known?
The city of Zigong, where Wooli comes from, is called the ‘Dinosaur Hub’ of China. But this shocking discovery caught the attention of scientists when in 2017, the daughter of the Ding family posted pictures of these stones on the internet. The pictures went viral in no time and immediately caught the attention of experts. Within a few weeks the research team reached the village. After taking permission from the family, the stones were sent to the museum and then the real study began.
Now what came out in the study?
According to the South China Morning Post, according to the latest published scientific report, 413 dinosaur footprints have been found in a total of eight stones. These belong to the Early Jurassic period. That is, when theropod dinosaurs that walked on two legs, like modern birds, roamed the earth. Among these footprints, most of the traces of Grallator and Eubrontes species were found. According to scientists, the gait and speed of these dinosaurs were like that of modern birds and they would have been running at a speed of about 6-9 km per hour.
What are the tail drag marks found on stones?
The most interesting thing was that tail drag marks were also found on some stones. These are the marks when dinosaurs dragged their tails on the ground while walking slowly or looking at something. Such marks are considered extremely rare in the fossil record. This discovery has created a stir on local social media. People are surprised that the brothers stepped on the dinosaur’s feet for so many years and they did not even know. One user wrote- ‘Imagine how it would feel to walk the path of dinosaurs every day!’ Experts say that this discovery is not only interesting but also very important from scientific point of view. Now all the stones have been safely kept in the museum so that further research can be done on them in future.
