World's largest dinosaur footprints discovered

in Western Australia
Newly-discovered prints left by gigantic herbivores are part of a rich
collection of tracks belonging to an estimated 21 different types of dinosaur

The prints indicate enormous animals that

were probably around 5.3 to 5.5 metres
at the hip. Photograph:
Damian Kelly/University of
Queensland/EPA

The largest known dinosaur

footprints have been discovered in
Western Australia, including 1.7 metre prints left by gigantic herbivores. Until now, the
biggest known dinosaur footprint was a 106cm track discovered in the Mongolian desert
and reported last year.

At the new site, along the Kimberley shoreline in a remote region of Western Australia,
palaeontologists discovered a rich collection of dinosaur footprints in the sandstone
rock, many of which are only visible at low tide. The prints, belonging to about 21
different types of dinosaur, are also thought to be the most diverse collection of prints in
the world.

Steve Salisbury, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Queensland told ABC

News: “We’ve got several tracks up in that area that are about 1.7 metres long. So most
people would be able to fit inside tracks that big, and they indicate animals that are
probably around 5.3 to 5.5 metres at the hip, which is enormous.”

The prints, found along the

Kimberley shoreline, belong to
about 21 different types of
dinosaur, and are thought to be the
most diverse collection of prints in
the world. Photograph: Damian
Kelly/AFP/University of
Queensland/Getty Images

Salisbury said the diversity of

the tracks was globally
unparalleled and made the area the “Cretaceous equivalent of the Serengeti”. He also
dubbed it “Australia’s own Jurassic Park”. “It is extremely significant, forming the
primary record of non-avian dinosaurs in the western half the continent and providing
the only glimpse of Australia’s dinosaur fauna during the first half of the early
Cretaceous period,” he said.

The findings were reported in the Memoir of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

“There are thousands of tracks,” said Salisbury. “Of these, 150 can confidently be
assigned to 21 specific track types, representing four main groups of dinosaurs.”

The largest tracks belonged to sauropods, huge Diplodocus-like herbivores with long
necks and tails. The scientists also discovered tracks from about four different types of
ornithopod dinosaurs (two-legged herbivores) and six types of armoured dinosaurs,
including Stegosaurs, which had not previously been seen in Australia. At the time the
prints were left, 130m years ago, the area was a large river delta and dinosaurs would
have traversed wet sandy areas between surrounding forests.

The latest investigation was prompted after the region was selected as the site for a
liquid natural gas processing precinct in 2008. The area’s traditional custodians, the
Goolarabooloo people, who were aware of the prints, contacted Salisbury and his team
and asked them to investigate. The scientists from Queensland University and James
Cook University, along with Indigenous representatives, spent 400 hours documenting
the prints. “Dinosaur tracks have been known through that area, probably for thousands
of years. They form part of the song cycle,” Salisbury said told ABC News. “We got
contacted to come in and have closer look, and it didn’t take long for us to realise that …
there was a spectacular dinosaur track fauna preserved there that was at risk.”