DINO DISCOVERY
Girl, 10, finds 200million-year-old dinosaur footprints while playing on a beach
Tegan guessed the prints could be pre-historic and mum Claire alerted experts
A GIRL of ten discovered 200million-year-old dinosaur footprints while playing on a beach.
The child, named only as Tegan, spotted a series of similar shaped large holes on the stoney shore in her school holidays.
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She guessed they could be pre-historic and mum Claire alerted experts.
They believe the five prints near Penarth, South Wales, belong to a 15ft dino called a camelotia.
Tegan, of Pontardawe, near Swansea, said: “It was so cool and exciting.”
We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything.
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“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.”
The stretch of coast is a favourite of fossil hunters.
Four-year-old Lily Wilder found another dino print nearby in 2021.
Palaeontologist Cindy Howells, of National Museum Wales, inspected the marks left in the rock and said she was “fairly certain they are genuine dinosaur prints”.
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Cindy told BBC programme The Dinohunters: “We’ve got five footprints and we’re talking about half-to-three-quarters of a metre between each one.
“These footprints are so big, it would have to be a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha.
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“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.
“It’s quite a significant find - the buzz you get when someone contacts us with a definite dinosaur find, it’s amazing.”
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