Footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district.
- The western part of the state, where footprints were discovered, formed the seashore to the Tethys Ocean during the Mesozoic era.
- The footprints, made in the sediment or silt of the seashore, later became permanently stone-like.
- The footprints were 200 million years old. They were found near Jaisalmer’s Thaiat village.
- They belong to three species of dinosaurs — Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontes glenrosensis and Grallator tenuis. While the giganteus and glenrosensis species have 35 cm footprints, the footprint of the third species was found to be 5.5 cm.
- The dinosaur species are considered to be of the theropod type, with the distinguishing features of hollow bones and feet with three digits.
- Jan Schlogl of Comenius University in Slovakia and Grzegorz Pienkowski from Warsaw University in Poland were the first to discover dinosaur footprints in India after the ‘Ninth International Congress on the Jurassic System’ was held in Jaipur in 2014.
(Source: The Hindu)
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