Rare dinosaur footprints, believed to be 15 million years old, have gone missing from Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer.
Scientists fear that the rare footprints have either been destroyed, or have been stolen by bounty hunters.
Narayan Das Inkhiya, a groundwater scientist who was part of team which had discovered the dinosaur footprint, said:
“This is a huge loss for Jaisalmer in terms of heritage and for scientific community as a whole. I was part of team which discovered the footprint in 2014. This was a huge discovery as the Mesozoic era is when life originated, and the Jurassic era is an important part of it. Such a relic should have been protected but it is gone now.”
More About the Dinosaur Footprints
The dinosaur footprints had been discovered in Jaisalmer’s Thaiyat region in 2014, and were later confirmed to be Eubrontes glanrosensis theropods. According to a study published in 2015, these footprints were 15 million years old.
In the ninth International Congress on the Jurassic System, held at Rajasthan University in 2014, the possibilities and evidence of the existence of dinosaurs in Jaipur were discussed at length.
After the conference, a team of 20 scientists had discovered two markings of dinosaur footprints in the hills of Thaiyat area in Jaisalmer. The 30 cm long footprints were secured at their original place by the scientists.
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These footprints have now gone missing.
Lead scientist Dhirendra Kumar Pandey said that he received the information about the missing footprints a few weeks ago.
Experts believe that it is possible that these footprints may have been destroyed by the uninformed locals or may have been stolen by bounty hunters. Many tourists come to Akal Wood Fossil Park of Jaisalmer every year, which displays fossil wood traces from the same Jaisalmer formation.
According to scientists, the Lathi formation in Jaisalmer is the oldest lithostratigraphic unit overlying rocks of Malani igneous suites in Jaisalmer basin. It is well developed and lies in the vicinity of Lathi, Odhaniya and Thaiyat-Akal area.
The local administration is still groping in the dark over the alleged theft of dinosaur footprints from Jaisalmer.
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The severe drought in Texas has revealed previously undiscovered dinosaur tracks, additional signs the massive animals resided and hunted in the north-central part of the state.
Dinosaur Valley State Park, which opened 50 years ago, is home to perhaps hundreds of tracks of different dinosaurs and prehistoric animals as far back as 113 million years ago. Now, the Paluxy River within the park has receded to reveal new sets of tracks.
These new ones, said park superintendent Jeff Davis, “either haven’t been seen for decades, or you know, that maybe haven’t been seen anybody in anyone’s living memory. So that is what makes it kind of special, what’s going on right now.”
The area where the dinosaur tracks have been revealed has historically been underwater and perhaps concealed by sandbars or rocky cover by the river, which is a tributary of the Brazos River.
The tracks found include a series made by a dinosaur with tracks often found in the park: an acrocanthosaurus, a theropod (dinosaur that walked on two legs) and a predator similar in size — 20 feet tall or more and weighing as much as 7 tons — to the Tyrannosaurus. “They’re quite a bit older than T. Rex and a little big different body shape, but generally the same idea,” David said. “They have a large three-toed track that is very distinct.”
Other tracks were likely made by the Sauroposeidon proteles, a herbivorous dinosaur that could be 60 to 70 feet long and weigh more than 40 tons — the sauropod’s tracks have also been found in the park before. It would leave “left hind footprints over a yard long, with smaller, clawless horseshoe-shaped front footprints,” the park’s website said.
Acrocanthosaurus likely preyed on the leaf-eating sauropods. “Like modern predators, they probably would have targeted younger, smaller, old, sick, or injured individuals,” Davis said.
In addition to the acrocanthosaurus’ trail of tracks, “there are many, many other tracks made by multiple species of dinos,” he said. Experts continue to assess the tracks.
Looking back 130 million years or so ago, the area resided on the shallows of a massive inland sea dividing the continent. “These dinosaurs were walking in this thick, sticky mud along the edge of the sea, and then that was all covered up with silt and sediment and eventually turned into limestone and then was preserved,” Davis said.
The river eventually carved through the land and exposed the tracks. “So the river is good in that way that exposes new tracks, but at the same time, it’s eroding away tracks that become exposed over time,” he said.
“That river is persistent. It has all the time in the world to wear those tracks away,” Davis said. “So it’s all just a matter of time.”