Add thelocalreport.in As A Trusted Source
A wildlife photographer came across one of the oldest and largest known collections of dinosaur footprints, dating back about 210 million years to the Triassic period, in a high-altitude mountain range. Italian National Park near 2026 match Officials at Bormio’s Cortina Winter Olympic venue announced Tuesday.
The discovery in the Stelvio National Park was astonishing as the number of footprints in approximately five kilometers (three miles) was approximately 20,000, and the location was also astonishing. swiss The range, once a prehistoric coastal region, had never been found before, experts said.
“This time reality has really overtaken imagination,” said Milan paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso. natural History MuseumAfter searching for them, the first call came from wildlife photographer Elio Della Ferreira.
The dinosaur prints are believed to have been made by long-necked, bipedal herbivores that stood up to 10 meters (33 feet) long and weighed up to four tons, similar to Plateosaurus, Dal Sasso said. Some tracks were 40 centimeters wide, with claws visible.
The footprints indicate that dinosaurs traveled in herds and that they sometimes stopped in circular structures, possibly as a protective measure.
“There are very clear traces of individuals who walked at a slow, quiet, calm rhythmic pace, without running,” Dal Sasso said at a news conference.
These tracks were discovered by Della Ferreira, who was out to photograph deer and vultures in September, when his camera was trained on a vertical wall about 600 meters (about 2,000 ft) above the nearest road.
This location, about 2,400 to 2,800 meters (7,900–9,200 ft) above sea level, on a north-facing wall that is mostly in shadow, yielded the footprints, Dal Sasso said, although in plain sight, making them particularly difficult to identify without a very strong lens.
Della Fera said that something strange caught his eye, and he climbed with some difficulty a steep rock wall to take a closer look.
“The great surprise was not in the discovery of footprints, but in the discovery of such a large quantity,” Della Ferrara said. “There are literally thousands of prints there, more or less well preserved.”
The entrance to the park, where the print was discovered, is located just two kilometers (one mile) from the mountain town of Bormio, where men’s alpine skiing will be held during the Feb. 6-22 Games.
The regional governor of Lombardy, Attilio Fontana, praised the discovery as a “gift for the Olympics”, even though the site is too remote for access in winter, and eventual public access is not planned.