Paleontologists have studied and described three surfaces, including previously unknown dinosaur tracks, from an area near Biloella in Queensland, Australia.
Surface containing dinosaur tracks from the sandstone Duncreek mine area in the Kalido Basin, Queensland, Australia. Image credits: Romilio et al. , doi: 10.1080/08912963.2025.2472153.
University of Queensland researcher Dr. Anthony Romilio and his colleagues discovered footprints of early Jurassic dinosaurs preserved in three separate rocks in the Kalido Basin.
“One of the surfaces contains a single track, the other has a single trackway consisting of two tracks, and the third has a large concentration of 66 footprints,” they said.
“This is the highest concentration known from the area, with a density of 71 tracks per metre.2and only to specimens of the same age from the Carnarvon Valley, the second highest in Australia. ”
Each footprint has three toes, indicating that it belongs to the dinosaur Ichnospecy anomoepus scambus.
“The Ichnospecies, also discovered at the early Jurassic track sites in Carnarvon Valley and Mount Morgan, shows the prevalence of Ornishikian dinosaurs throughout the region,” the researchers said.
Small filled circular traces, possibly invertebrate burrows Scoritusthe surface is rich and, if correct, indicates that the tracks were formed under sub-light blue to medium energy conditions.
ICHNOSPECIES' Ornithischian Track Maker anomoepus scambus. Image credit: University of Queensland.
“The footprint comes from 47 individual dinosaurs that have passed through patches of wet white clay, and they probably walked or crossed the waterways,” Dr. Romilio said.
“These dinosaurs were small, with legs ranging from 15-50 cm long, and when they left these marks they were moving below 6 km/h.”
“Evidence from skeletal fossils abroad says that dinosaurs with legs like these were herbivores that had long legs, thick bodies, short arms and small heads with beaks.”
Scientists say the newly discovered footprint is about 200 million years old (early Jurassic epoch).
“These footprints provide valuable insight into the abundance and behavior of dinosaurs in an age where body fossils are not present in Australia,” they said.
Their paper It was published in the journal on March 10th, 2025 Historical Biology.
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Anthony Romillio et al. Dinosaur footprints from sandstones in the Lower Jurassic (Hetangian-Cinemurian), the Kalido Basin, Queensland, Australia. Historical BiologyPublished online on March 10th, 2025. doi:10.1080/08912963.2025.2472153
Source: www.sci.news
