The 77-centimetre-long footprints were discovered at a site on the Courtedoux plateau near the Trans-Jura motorway by a team of palaeontologists from Barcelona and Denver universities, along with the Natural History Museum of Basel.
The tracks are among the biggest in the world and belong to a three-toed theropod dinosaur of the Late Jurassic period, dating back 152 million years. The researchers believe they belong specifically to the newly-named Jurabrontes curtedulensis: a two-footed dinosaur which stood around 10-12 metres tall.
“The sheer size of the largest tracks, amongst the largest worldwide and of similar size to Tyrannosauripus from the Late Cretaceous, suggests a ‘megalosaurid’ or large allosaurid theropod,” the researchers wrote in the latest edition of the Historical Biology journalExternal link.
The region, near the village of Courtedoux in the northwestern Jura mountains, has already yielded numerous fossils, including remains of marine, littoral and terrestrial organisms. Among the finds are more than 14,000 dinosaur footprints, many of which belong to herbivore sauropods.
At the time, the environment of the Jura region is thought to have resembled that of the Bahamas in the Caribbean, with beaches, islands, a dry climate, not too much humidity, and elevated temperatures.
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Dinosaur-delayed motorway finally opens
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Fifteen years ago, the discovery of dinosaur footprints brought construction of a new motorway in the Bernese Jura to a grinding halt.
Triassic park: oldest Swiss dinosaur skeleton found
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“This herbivore lived 210 million years ago and was discovered in the Upper Triassic geologic layer,” said Ben Pabst, who has been leader of the dig in Frick, canton Aargau, since 1976. The dinosaur’s head has yet to be found. Plateosaurus was a bipedal herbivore with a small skull on a long, mobile neck, sharp…
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Experts from the Basel Natural History Museum say the footprints measure 40cm and were left by predatory dinosaurs on what was the bed of a shallow sea during the Triassic period. “Obviously this dinosaur did not wear crampons 205 to 210 million years ago, otherwise we would see it clearly,” joked Christian A. Meyer, a…
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Palaeontologists have discovered nearly 500 well preserved footprints in a layer of limestone near the village of Courtedoux in canton Jura. “The find is of exceptional scientific value,” said Christian Meyer, director of Basel’s natural history museum, who has studied dinosaur tracks for the past 15 years. However, the site is threatened by the construction…
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