ROME: Hundreds of metres of dinosaur tracks with toes and claws have been found in the Italian Alps in a region that will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, authorities said on Tuesday.
“This set of dinosaur footprints is one of the largest collections in all of Europe, in the whole world,” Attilio Fontana, head of the Lombardy region in northern Italy, told a press conference.
The tracks, which are over 200 million years old, were discovered in the Stelvio National Park, in an area between the towns of Bormio and Livigno, which host part of the games.
Nature photographer Elio Della Ferrera first spotted the imprints in September in an almost vertical rocky slope.
Some measured up to 40 centimetres in diameter.
The collection “extends for hundreds of metres and also represents a series of animal behaviours, because in addition to seeing animals walking together, there are also places where these animals meet”, Fontana said.
Della Ferrera called in palaeontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso from Milan´s Natural History Museum, who assembled a team of Italian experts to study the site.
“The parallel walks are clear evidence of herds moving in synchrony, and there are also traces of more complex behaviours, such as groups of animals gathered in a circle, perhaps for defence.”
