Dinosaurs were travelling across continents, matching footprints of predators suggest

An international team of scientists made a stunning discovery of 260 matching dinosaur footprints - which are spread across Brazil and Cameroon - and hints at how these predators travelled across the globe.

The footprints of the dinosaur date back to the Early Cretaceous period and give a glimpse of the time when they lived in the vast supercontinent called Gondwana.

Later, the landmass split into South America and Africa which today have remnants of different dinosaur species.

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The footprints of the predator not only provide information regarding their size and how these prehistoric creatures moved but also hint about their behaviour and the kind of ecosystems they inhabited.

What did the scientists discover from the matching footprints of dinosaurs?

Southern Methodist University's (SMU) seasoned palaeontologist Louis L. Jacobs found these dinosaur footprints spread across continents which hinted that perhaps a big family of the predators lived in the Americas and Africa.

“We determined that in terms of age, these footprints were similar. In their geological and plate tectonic contexts, they were also similar. In terms of their shapes, they are almost identical," Jacobs said.

The footprints of the dinosaur found by the palaeontologist belonged to three-toed theropod dinosaurs as well as the ancestors of modern birds.

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The scientists said that some tracks may have been formed from large, long-necked herbivores 'sauropods' and herbivorous dinosaurs 'ornithischians'.

“One of the youngest and narrowest geological connections between Africa and South America was the elbow of northeastern Brazil, nestled against the present-day coast of Cameroon along the Gulf of Guinea,” explained Jacobs.

"The two continents were continuous along that narrow stretch so that animals on either side of that connection could potentially move across it," he added.

During that time, this narrow land bridge played an important role in helping animals migrate between the two continents before they slowly drifted apart.

As the continents drifted apart, magma from the mantle came to the centre stage and the South Atlantic Ocean was created.

“The tracks tell us that these dinosaurs were moving through an environment that was changing drastically,” said Diana P. Vineyard, who is a research associate at SMU and a co-contributor to the study.

“These regions, now so far apart, were once part of the same landscape, filled with rivers, lakes, and thriving ecosystems," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)