When you think about the average day in the life of a toddler, crayons, and cartoons likely come to mind. Discovering an immaculately preserved 215-million-year-old dinosaur footprint? Probably not.
But that’s just what happened when 4-year-old Lily Wilder was taking a nature walk with her father on a rocky beach at Hendricks Bay near the Welsh town of Barry last month.
The indented impression spotted by eagle-eyed Lily measures just shy of four inches. Experts believe it was created by a two-footed dinosaur that likely stood about 30 inches tall and was 8.2 feet long.
Its species—one that’s not been seen before—is a mystery that’s set the scientific community alight. Karl-James Langford of Archaeology Cymru hailed the find as “the finest impression of a 215-million-year-old dinosaur print found in Britain in a decade.”
“Lily saw it when they were walking along and said, ‘Daddy look!’” Lily’s mom Sally Wilder said in a statement widely reported by the UK media.
“When Richard came home and showed me the photograph I thought it looked amazing… Richard thought it was too good to be true. I was put in touch with experts who took it from there.
“We were thrilled to find out it really was a dinosaur footprint and I am happy that it will be taken to the national museum where it can be studied for generations.”
After permission was granted by Natural Resources Wales to remove the fossil from the beach legally, the specimen was transported to Amgueddfa Cymru, the National Museum in Cardiff, where expert paleontologists hope to discover its secrets, according to Good News Network.
They believe by studying it, they will be able to better learn how such dinosaurs actually walked.
“Its spectacular preservation may help scientists establish more about the actual structure of their feet as the preservation is clear enough to show inpidual pads and even claw impressions,” an Amgueddfa Cymru spokesperson told The Daily Mail.
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