{"id":40713,"date":"2024-08-17T10:17:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-17T10:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/schoolgirls-dinosaur-footprint-find-on-vale-of-glamorgan-beach\/"},"modified":"2024-08-17T10:17:58","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T10:17:58","slug":"schoolgirls-dinosaur-footprint-find-on-vale-of-glamorgan-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/schoolgirls-dinosaur-footprint-find-on-vale-of-glamorgan-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Schoolgirl’s dinosaur footprint find on Vale of Glamorgan beach"},"content":{"rendered":"


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“We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything,” says Tegan, on the beach where the discovery was made<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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When 10-year-old Tegan went for a summer holiday beach stroll with her mum, she had no idea they would actually be walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

The schoolgirl spotted five enormous footprints that dinosaur experts believe are the mark of a camelotia that was there more than 200 million years ago.<\/p>\n

Palaeontologists think the footprints, which are up to 75cm (30in) apart, were made by a huge herbivore from the late triassic period, and now there are efforts to get them verified.<\/p>\n

Tegan and mum Claire have been told by the National Museum Wales palaeontology curator that she is “fairly certain they are genuine dinosaur prints”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The aerial shot of the footprints found by Tegan shows experts the possible stride pattern of the dinosaur across this spot more than 200 million years ago<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“We’ve got five footprints and we’re talking about half-to-three-quarters of a metre between each one,” Cindy Howells told the BBC’s The Dinohunters programme<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“These footprints are so big, it would have to be a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha.”<\/p>\n

Tegan’s monster discovery was on the south Wales coast near where her mum used to live.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“It was so cool and exciting,” said Tegan, who had travelled from Pontardawe near Swansea to the Vale of Glamorgan looking for fossils.<\/p>\n

“We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything. <\/p>\n

“We found these were big holes that looked like dinosaur footprints, so mum took some pictures, emailed the museum and it was from a long-necked dinosaur.”<\/p>\n

Claire emailed Cindy a few days after the find in the red siltstone at Lavernock Point between Cardiff and Barry on a stretch of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast known to be a prehistoric hotspot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Tegan<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“It was so cool and exciting,” says Tegan, with her mum Claire<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Cindy, the go-to dinosaur expert of 40 years in this part of the UK, said what convinced her they were genuine was the consistent stride pattern.<\/p>\n

“If they were random holes, we’d be wary but because we have a left foot, a right foot and then a left and another right… there’s a consistent distance between them,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It”s quite a significant find – the buzz you get when someone contacts us with a definite dinosaur find, it’s amazing.”<\/p>\n

Claire was chuffed their hunch was right and has invigorated her junior dino hunter daughter.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard to comprehend you’re walking on the same beach that hundreds of millions of years ago some massive prehistoric animal was here,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You can spent a lifetime looking for dinosaur treasures so for it to happen for Tegan at this age is great.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is a camelotia dinosaur?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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The latest prehistoric find on this stretch of coast is a print from the sauropod family of dinosaurs – including the brachiosaurus and diplodocus, distinctive by their very long necks, long tails, big body and small head.<\/p>\n

Cindy believes the footprint is from a camelotia, that lived across parts of Europe.<\/p>\n

Little is known about them – compared what experts know about stegosaurus, triceratops and the mighty T-rex – but it is thought they walked on their front feet and their hind limbs, were herbivorous and from the late triassic period.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Illustrations of what a camelotia may have looked like are rare, but experts think it closely resembled the massospondylus, shown here<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“We think these prints were made by a reasonably large, herbivorous dinosaur, added Cindy.<\/p>\n

“While we haven’t any bones here, bones of similiar dinosaurs were found on the otherside of the Bristol Channel.<\/p>\n

“A camelotia would have stood about 3m (10ft) tall, 4-5m (13-16ft) long and is an early sauropodomorph with a relatively long neck, long tail and walked on two legs but could walk on all four when grazing for food.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Is Wales a dinosaur find hotspot?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Cindy is pretty certain “Tegan’s footprints” are linked to the first dinosaur prints found in Wales in 1879 in nearby Porthcawl. <\/p>\n

Bones were then unearthed in Cowbridge in the Vale of Glamorgan before more footprints were found at The Bendricks near Barry and Sully – now a site of special scientific and paleontological interest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The 201-million-year-old dinosaur – dracoraptor hanigani, or “dragon thief” – “that fell out of a cliff face on the beach in 2014 where Tegan’s footprints are <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A full dinosaur skeleton was unearthed in 2014<\/a> on the same beach near Penarth where Tegan found her footprints – although that was a 201-million-year-old dracoraptor and a meat-eating cousin of the T-rex.<\/p>\n

Four-year-old Lily found a well-preserved dinosaur footprint<\/a> at The Bendricks three years ago and now Tegan has spotted some more just down the coast.<\/p>\n

“It’s amazing as up until recently, we had so few dinosaurs finds in Wales we didn’t think we had much in the way of dinosaurs here,” said Cindy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"AmgueddfaAmgueddfa Cymru<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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“Now we’re getting a footprint or bone find every five to six years and we now know we’ve a continuous sequence of dinosaurs living in Wales over 15 million years or so – it’s amazing.<\/p>\n

The south Wales group of the Geologists’ Association, of which Cindy is vice-president, believes it is “the best site in Britain for dinosaur tracks, external of the triassic period”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What was Wales like when dinosaurs roamed?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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Cindy has said Wales, whose geolological history dates back 700 million years, was a hot desert subject to flash floods when the dinosaur that formed the footprints found by Tegan roamed.<\/p>\n

She was keen to quickly analyse the prints as she knew it as a well-known spot for prehistoric finds.<\/p>\n

“The rocks around this area are triassic rocks, formed in the deserts and we know we’ve got dinosaur footprints in them,” added Cindy.<\/p>\n

“Some 220 million years ago, Wales looked like what the Middle East does now so very hot, dry with deserts, and the sea was hundreds of miles away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How palaeontologists think Wales might have looked during the late triassic period<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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“But sea level started to change and continents breaking apart, it was getting damper, the sea was flooding the deserts and the environment was more favourable for dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

“Then 200 million years ago, Wales was like the Mediterranean is now, with shallow, warm tropical seas and little islands.”<\/p>\n

Cindy has now written a report for other palaeontologists on her view they are from a dinosaur, to verify for the find.<\/p>\n

“It’s brilliant to say to people we have dinosaur footprints on our coast in south Wales,” she added. “You’ve just got to be in the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n

“In museums, we don’t have time to go out and do that exploration ourlseves so we rely on people like Tegan doing it for us. We can’t do our job without it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Cindy Howells has been chronicling the prehistoric history for Wales for 40 years and gets an email a week of possible finds<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The Geologists’ Association has told amateur dino hunters that footprints can be “difficult to see” as many are covered at high tide.<\/p>\n

“It is best to go after high tide when the tracks may retain small puddles of water,” the group advises. <\/p>\n

“It is also easier to spot the footprints when the sun is low in the sky as longer shadows will help throw the footprints into relief.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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BBC “We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything,” says Tegan, on the beach where the discovery was made When 10-year-old Tegan went for a summer holiday beach stroll with her mum, she had no idea they would actually be walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63],"tags":[192,2874,2347,1611,8775,14731,11828],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40713"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40715,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40713\/revisions\/40715"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}