4-year-old finds dinosaur footprint dating back 220 million years
While on a walk with her dad at Bendricks Bay in Wales, Lily Wilder, 4, made a discovery that will help paleontologists get a better idea of how early dinosaurs walked.
During their December jaunt, Lily spotted what looked to be a dinosaur footprint on a boulder, and pointed it out to her father. He took a picture, thinking "it was too good to be true," Lily's mom, Sally Wilder, said. The family got in touch with a paleontologist, who confirmed that Wilder found a dinosaur footprint that was made 220 million years ago.
The rock has since been taken to the National Museum Cardiff, where it will be studied by scientists. Other dinosaur footprints have been discovered in the area, but Cindy Howells, paleontology curator at the National Museum Wales, said it was "the best specimen ever found on this beach."
While researchers aren't sure which type of dinosaur left the print behind, they believe it walked on its two hind feet, and was about 2-and-a-half feet tall and 8 feet long. The footprint was so well preserved that "we can see the detail of where the joints of the animal are in its foot, and where the little muscles are, so we can tell the structure of the foot itself," Howells told ITV News, making the discovery "amazingly rare."
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