200-Million-Year-Old Three-Toed Dinosaur Footprints Discovered in Australia | Sci.News
Paleontologists have studied and described three previously unknown dinosaur track-bearing surfaces from a locality near Biloela in Queensland, Australia.
Dinosaur track-bearing surface from the Dunn Creek mining area of the Precipice Sandstone, Callide Basin, Queensland, Australia. Image credit: Romilio et al., doi: 10.1080/08912963.2025.2472153.
Dr. Anthony Romilio, a researcher at the University of Queensland, and his colleagues discovered Early Jurassic dinosaur footprints preserved on three separate boulders from the Callide Basin.
“One of the surfaces contains a single track, another has a single trackway composed of two tracks, while the third contains a large concentration of 66 footprints,” they said.
“This is the highest concentration known from the area, with a density of 71 tracks per m2, and second highest in Australia only to a same-aged specimen from Carnarvon Gorge.”
Each footprint has three toes, indicating they belong to the dinosaur ichnospecies Anomoepus scambus.
“This ichnospecies that has also been found at Early Jurassic tracksites in the Carnarvon Gorge and Mount Morgan, indicating the prevalence of ornithischian dinosaurs across the region,” the researchers said.
Small, infilled circular traces, possibly invertebrate burrows of the ichnogenus Skolithos, are abundant on the surfaces that, if correct, indicate the tracks were formed in subaqueous, moderate-to-high energy conditions.
Ornithischian trackmakers of the ichnospecies Anomoepus scambus. Image credit: University of Queensland.
“The footprints are from 47 individual dinosaurs which passed across a patch of wet, white clay, possibly walking along or crossing a waterway,” Dr. Romilio said.
“These dinosaurs were small, with legs ranging from 15-50 cm in length and when they left these marks, they were traveling less than 6 km per hour.”
“Evidence from skeletal fossils overseas tells us dinosaurs with feet like these were plant eaters with long legs, a chunky body, short arms, and a small head with a beak.”
According to the scientists, the newly-discovered footprints are approximately 200 million years old (Early Jurassic epoch).
“These footprints provide valuable insights into the abundance and behavior of dinosaurs during a time when body fossils are absent in Australia,” they said.
Their paper was published March 10, 2025 in the journal Historical Biology.
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Anthony Romilio et al. Dinosaur footprints from the Lower Jurassic (Hettangian-Sinemurian) Precipice Sandstone of the Callide Basin, Queensland, Australia. Historical Biology, published online March 10, 2025; doi: 10.1080/08912963.2025.2472153
