Scientists Discover Dinosaur Foot Tracks In Australia

Sydney, Australia (AHN) - Scientists have discovered fossil tracks belonging to large, carnivorous dinosaurs called Theropods near Inverloch, seaside village in Victoria, Australia.

Palaeontologists from Monash University and Museum of Victoria say the newly discovered footprints, each about 14 inches (36 centimeters) long and showing two to three partial toe-prints, reveal the animals survived in polar climates when the outback was still joined to Antarctica and close to the South Pole.

The researchers estimate the fossil tracks date back to 115 million years during the Cretaceous Period by Theropod dinosaurs, a group of bipedal carnivores that includes Tyrannosaurus rex.

The creatures stood 4.6 to 4.9 feet (1.4 to 1.5 meters) at the hip. It is the first time tracks of this kind have been found in Victoria. The three separate tracks show at least two or three partial toes.

Anthony Martin, senior lecturer in environmental studies at Emory University first spotted the two of the tracks in February 2006 at the Flat Rocks site near Melbourne. A year later at the same dig site, Tyler Lamb, an undergraduate student at Monash University in Melbourne, uncovered the third track.

Professor Vickers-Rich told Science Alert, "The tracks are the first known of these dinosaurs in Victoria and demonstrate that they were living in the same area where their bones are being found, near the Dinosaur Dreaming dig site at Bunurong Marine Park."

The new tracks add to the fossil evidence of so-called polar dinosaurs dug up in Australia. The polar dinosaurs were adapted to the cold climate and had a night-vision to help them hunt for food during the dark winters.

The discoveries were made official at the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology meeting in Austin, Texas on 19 October 2007.