A curator of the National Museum in Wales calls the footprint ‘the best specimen ever found on this beach’. “This will really help paleontologists get a better idea of how dinosaurs lived. Lily is the credit to the museum acquisition.”
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‘Too good to be true’
Lily saw the print as she walked the beach with her parents. “Lily and her father discovered the print,” says her mother. “We thought it was too good to be true. We were put in touch with experts from the museum who took over from there.”
It turned out not to be too good to be true. According to archaeologists, the four-inch print likely came from a dinosaur about three feet high and eight feet long.
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Coelophysis
It is not possible to say exactly what type it is, but according to the museum the print is probably of a slender animal that walked on two hind legs. There are no fossils of this dinosaur, but similar footprints were previously found in the United States. There it was stated that they would come from a Coelophysis. That is a dinosaur that would not occur in the United Kingdom.
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The beach where the footprint was found is private. Prints have been found before, but they were probably not of dinosaurs but of crocodile-like reptiles. The footprint is now taken to the National Museum of Cardiff where it is protected for study and admission.
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