Dinosaur footprints found in Denmark

03 Jun, 2004

A palaeontology student in Denmark has found fossilised footprints of two dinosaurs from the Jurassic period dating back 170 million years on a beach on the Baltic island of Bornholm.
"This is the first discovery of dinosaur footprints of this kind in Denmark," student Jesper Milan told AFP on Wednesday.
"The footprints are about 70 centimetre's (27.5 inches) from a large sauropod measuring about 20 metres (65 feet), which ate vegetables, and 25-centimetre (10-inch) prints of an herbivorous ankylosaur," he said.
Milan found the prints on two rocks that had fallen from a cliff onto the shore, between the towns of Roenne and Hasle on the western side of the island.
During the Jurassic period, Bornholm was "the only part of what is currently Denmark that was not under water, and it enjoyed a tropical climate with luxurious vegetation, which made for a nice life for dinosaurs," Milan said.
The two rocks were on Wednesday on display outside Copenhagen's Geological Museum.
Milan's find is the latest of a number of discoveries on the island of Bornholm.
In 2000, researchers found a 135-million-year old tooth of a velociraptor, a running lizard-like predator. Two years laters, a tooth that appeared to belong to a sauropod was also found.

Read Comments