Diner accidentally discovers dinosaur footprints

CHINA: A diner sitting in the outdoor courtyard of a small restaurant in China’s Sichuan province happened to look down at the ground and spot something unusual. It appeared to be a dinosaur footprint.

Two weeks ago, Chinese paleontologists confirmed that the diner was right. The depressions had in fact been left by two dinosaurs as they plodded across the region about 100 million years ago.

Using a 3D scanner, scientists determined that the tracks were made by sauropods — large herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and four legs. According to Lida Xing, a paleontologist at China University of Geosciences who led the team investigating the site, these footprints were probably made by the species Titanosauriformes.

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The footprints are about 22 inches long on average, and the dinosaurs probably measured about 26 feet long and weighed more than 2,000 pounds, Xing told The Washington Post.

While not an everyday occurrence, the discovery of dinosaur footprints happens on occasion in China — just not in urban environments.

“Sauropod tracks are not rare in Sichuan Basin … but they are very rare[ly] found in restaurants in downtown,” Xing said in an email. “Most of the time, the ground of the city is either vegetation or cement.”

– THE WASHINGTON POST