LONDON – A four-year-old girl made a great discovery.
Walking along a beach in Wales with her father and pet dog, she spotted an extremely well-preserved dinosaur footprint that excited paleontologists around the world.
Lily Wilder made the discovery near Bendricks Bay, in the south of Wales, in the United Kingdom, finding an impression that is believed to have been left 220 million years ago.
“He was on a low rock, at Lily’s shoulders, and she just saw him and said, ‘Look, Daddy,'” his mother, Sally Wilder, 41, told NBC News by phone on Saturday.
“She’s really excited, but she doesn’t understand how incredible this is,” said Sally, an engineer. Adding that the husband took pictures on the beach and then shared them with the family. It was Lily’s grandmother who encouraged them to seek out local experts and fossil enthusiasts for further investigation.
While it is impossible to pinpoint exactly what type of dinosaur left the 10 cm (3.9 inch) footprint, some facts are discernible, Cindy Howells, Paleontology curator at the Amgueddfa Cymru National Museum of Wales, he told NBC News.
It is likely that the footprint was made by a dinosaur about 75 centimeters (29.5 inches) high and 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) long, she said.
It would have been a slender animal with a tail that walked on both hind legs and actively hunted other small animals and insects, she added. The specimen’s footprint is known as a “grallator” and can help scientists establish more about how dinosaurs walk.
“It’s brilliant,” Howells told NBC News.
“It is truly an impressive preservation … You can see every detail of the muscles and where the foot joints are.”
Wales and many other land masses are likely to have historically dinosaurs roaming around them, Howells said. Unfortunately, there are no fossilized bones that match the impression, she said, but similar footprints have been found in the United States, known to have been made by the “cellophysis” dinosaur.
“We haven’t found a fraction of the total dinosaur species yet,” said Howells, adding that the impression Lily found provides a very useful “clue”.
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The Welsh beach is protected as a place of special scientific interest and the preserved fossil has been safely removed. Soon it will be taken to the Cardiff National Museum for future generations to enjoy and for scientists to study, the museum said in a statement.
The museum, currently closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, said that as soon as it reopened, Lily and her gang would be invited to view the article and have their names listed alongside as an official “finder”.
Lily, who loves TV shows about dinosaurs and has a collection of toys and models, told NBC News that T-Rex was her favorite.
While she played with her younger brother George, 1, Lily’s mother said she encouraged parents facing coronavirus blocking restrictions to take their children for a walk in the wild, where it is safely possible.
“We will continue to encourage exploration outside,” said Sally. “It’s great because it makes them really interested and the whole family can learn together.”
