Footprints of 3 dinosaur species found in Rajasthan’s Thar desert

Jaipur: Footprints of three different species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert of Jaisalmer district at Rajasthan. The footprints were spotted in the deposits of the seashore, which eventually became permanently stone-like figures.

According to a report of The Hindu, the three species of dinosaurs include Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontes glenrosensis and Grallator tenuis. The giganteus and glenrosensis species have 35 cm footprints, the footprint of the third species was found to be 5.5 cm, added reports.

A member of the team of palaeontologists, who made the discovery, Virendra Singh Parihar said that the footprints were 200 million years old. They were found near Jaisalmer’s Thaiat village.

The dinosaur species are considered to be with the distinguishing features of hollow bones and feet with three digits. All the three species, belonging to the early Jurassic period, were carnivorous, added Parihar.

Parihar also added that the possibility of finding more evidence of dinosaurs in two districts of Rajasthan is very strong. The Jaisalmer and Barmer districts are part of the huge Thar desert stretching to both the sides of the India-Pakistan border.

It is to be noted that Eubrontes is the name of the footprints, identified by their shape, and not of the genus or genera that made them, which is as yet unknown but is presumed to be similar to Coelophysis or Dilophosaurus. They could have been 12 to 15 metres long and weighed between 500 kg and 700 kg. Similarly, Grallator is an ichnogenus (form taxon based on footprints) which covers a common type of small, three-toed print made by a variety of bipedal theropod dinosaurs. The height of the Grallator is estimated to have been two metres, as much as a human, with a length of up to three metres