milan
AP
—
A wildlife photographer stumbled upon one of the oldest and largest known collections of dinosaur footprints, dating back some 210 million years to the Triassic period, in the highlands of an Italian national park near Bormio, site of the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, officials announced Tuesday.
Experts said the discovery in Stelvio National Park was shocking because of the sheer number of footprints – an estimated 20,000 footprints spread over about 5 kilometers (3 miles) – and the location, near the Swiss border, in a once prehistoric coastal area where no dinosaur footprints had ever been found before.
“In this case, reality really surpassed fantasy,” said Cristiano Dal Sasso, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Milan, who received the first call from wildlife photographer Elio della Ferrera after the discovery.
Dal Sasso said the dinosaur footprints are believed to have been made by a long-necked, bipedal herbivore, similar to Plateosaurus, up to 10 meters long and weighing up to 4 tonnes. Some of the footprints were 40 centimeters wide, and claws were visible.
The footprints indicate that dinosaurs traveled in groups, sometimes stopping in circular formations, perhaps as a means of protection.
“There are very clear traces of someone who did not run, but walked at a slow, calm, quiet rhythmic pace,” Dal Sasso told a news conference.
Dela Ferrera, who began photographing deer and vultures in September, discovered the footprints when he pointed his camera at a vertical wall about 600 meters (about 2,000 feet) above the nearest road.
Dal Sasso said the site was about 2,400 to 2,800 meters (7,900 to 9,200 feet) above sea level, on a north-facing wall and mostly in the shade, so while the footprints were visible, they were particularly difficult to spot without very powerful lenses.
Dela Fera said something strange caught his eye and he had some trouble climbing up a vertical rock wall to get a better look.
“The big surprise was not so much the discovery of the footprints, but that they were found in such large numbers. There are really tens of thousands of footprints out there, more or less well preserved,” Della Ferrara said.
The entrance to the park where the footprints were discovered is just 2 kilometers (1 mile) from the mountain town of Bormio, where men’s alpine skiing will be held during the Olympic Games from February 6 to 22.
Lombardy Governor Attilio Fontana hailed the discovery as a “gift to the Olympics”, even though there are no plans to ultimately open it to the public as the site is too remote to access in winter.
