A fossil find at a central Queensland school has dinosaur experts excited with the special stone capturing the most dinosaur footprints ever found on a single surface.
The remarkable rock, unearthed in a central Queensland mine, is covered in 66 tracks and helps show what life was like 200 million years ago.
The footprints match those found on other rocks near Rockhampton and Roma.
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“Nearly 50 dinosaurs were walking on this,” Anthony Romilio, University of Queensland Palaeontologist, said.
“It’s the largest number of footprints we’ve found on a single block.
“When you find a skeleton that’s when they’re dead.
“When you find footprints they’ve actually made those while they’re alive and so that gives us an insight into their behaviour.”
The boulder was first found two decades ago but it’s importance initially went unnoticed.
It was taken to Biloela State High School, where it sat in the foyer for almost 17 years.
“I was just grateful that the people contacted me and I was able to present it to the world today,” Romilio said.
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It’s believed it was under a shallow river in the central Queensland region where these creatures walked regularly.
The size of the footprints indicate that they weren’t large.
Some species were only about 30 centimetres tall and others closer to a metre. There were lots of them, spread right across the state.
“We find the same type of dinosaur footprint in Carnarvon Gorge and Mount Morgan so we know this type of dinosaur had a broad distribution,” Romilio said.
“It’s just a snapshot of a moment in the lives of these amazing creatures.”
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