A 10-year-old girl found 220-million-year-old dinosaur footprints on the beach
September 5, 20240
This area of Wales has other dinosaur fossils, including footprints.
Cindy Howells
The Joneses live about an hour from the beach near Penarthin South Wales, which is known for being rich in fossils from the Jurassic period, around 200 to 145 million years ago.
They knew a set of dinosaur prints had previously been found nearby, so the pair decided to look for them. That’s when they discovered the new tracks.
Online pictures of previously found dino tracks were in grayish rocks. But the Joneses’ photos of the new-found tracks were in red rocks. That’s when they realized they might have found something new.
A Camelotia dinosaur may have left the footprints.
The dinosaur footprints were first seen in the late 19th century.
Geography Photos/Getty Images
The Joneses are the first to see these prints in over 140 years, Howells said.
Geologists in the late 19th century published a paper on a series of tracks in a similar location, which Howells suspects was the same set that the Joneses came upon.
“No one has seen them since,” Howells said via email.
It took certain conditions for dinosaurs to leave fossilized footprints.
Tegan and Claire Jones couldn’t believe they found dinosaur footprints.
Cindy Howells
It wasn’t just Howells who was excited by Tegan’s rediscovery of the prints. An episode of the BBC show “Our Lives” featured the family and their discovery.
“It has been very surreal, amazing, and unbelievable,” Claire Jones said about the whole experience.
Howells said she and her colleagues will potentially write a paper on the finding to document the prints’ existence.
