In a major discovery, footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district.
Context
In a major discovery, footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district.
Key-findings of the discovery
- The footprints were spotted in the deposits of the seashore, which eventually became permanently stone-like figures.
- They belong to three species of dinosaurs —
- Eubrontes cf. giganteus
- Eubrontes glenrosensis
- Grallator tenuis
- The giganteus and glenrosensis species have 35 cm footprints.
- The footprint of the third species was found to be 5.5 cm.
- The footprints were 200 million years old.
- Dinosaurs are a group of reptiles that dominated the land for over 140 million years (more than 160 million years in some parts of the world).
- They evolved diverse shapes and sizes, and were able to survive in a variety of ecosystems.
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Features
- The dinosaur species are considered to be of the theropod type, with the distinguishing features of hollow bones and feet with three digits.
- All the three species, belonging to the early Jurassic period (199.6 million to 145.5 million years ago).
- Eubrontes could have been 12 to 15 metres long and weighed between 500 kg and 700 kg.
- The height of the Grallator is estimated to have been two metres, as much as a human, with a length of up to three metres.
- Grallator tenuis footprint, involving a wide angle of digits, very narrow toes, and long claws, had strong similarities to the early Jurassic ichnogenus of Stenonyx.
- There could be taxonomic variation between the Grallator tracemakers from North America and the findings in Rajasthan.
- Eubrontes is the name of the footprints, identified by their shape, and not of the genus or genera that made them.
- Grallator is an ichnogenus (form taxon based on footprints) which covers a common type of small, three-toed print made by a variety of bipedal theropod dinosaurs.
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