A 'dinosaur highway' with nearly 200 dinosaur footprints dating back 166 million years has been discovered in a limestone quarry in Oxfordshire, England. The find provides valuable insights into the Middle Jurassic period and the interactions between different types of dinosaurs.
limestone quarry noticed unusual bumps that led to the discovery of a 'dinosaur highway' and nearly 200 tracks that date back 166 million years, researchers said overnight. The extraordinary find made after a team of more than 100 people excavated the Dewars Farm Quarry, in Oxfordshire, in June expands upon previous paleontology work in the area and offers greater insights into the Middle Jurassic period, researchers at the universities of Oxford and Birmingham said.
'These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited,' said Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontology professor at the University of Birmingham.Four of the sets of tracks that make up the so-called highway show paths taken by gigantic, long-necked, herbivores called sauropods, thought to be Cetiosaurus, a dinosaur that grew to nearly 18m in length. A fifth set belonged to the Megalosaurus, a ferocious 9m predator that left a distinctive triple-claw print and was the first dinosaur to be scientifically named two centuries ago. An area where the tracks cross raises questions about possible interactions between the carnivores and herbivores. 'Scientists have known about and been studying Megalosaurus for longer than any other dinosaur on Earth, and yet these recent discoveries prove there is still new evidence of these animals out there, waiting to be found,' said Emma Nicholls, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.Nearly 30 years ago, 40 sets of footprints discovered in a limestone quarry in the area were considered one of the world's most scientifically important dinosaur track sites. But that area is mostly inaccessible now and there's limited photographic evidence because it predated the use of digital cameras and drones to record the finding
DINOSAURS FOSSILS OXFORDSHIRE PALEONTOLOGY MIDDLE JURASSIC
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