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MEXICO CITY - A Mexican man has discovered dozens of dinosaur footprints dating back up to 110 million years along the banks of a dried river.
Biologist Oscar Polaco said yesterday that the footprints, found by a local resident in a desert region in central Mexico, belonged to three prehistoric species that came to drink water in the area, once a swampy zone close to the sea.
Polaco said more studies were needed to determine what species of dinosaur the fossilised prints, each one up to 60cm across, belonged to.
"At the moment we can confirm these are footprints that belong to dinosaurs that lived during the early Cretaceous [period]," the scientist said. The period - considered the last era before dinosaurs disappeared - began about 144 million years ago and followed on from the late Jurassic period.
Last year scientists identified 30 other dinosaur prints in the same region.
- REUTERS
