Almost 200 giant footprints have been unearthed in Oxfordshire in the UK’s biggest-ever discovery of dinosaur tracks.
The spectacular finding, situated on the site of Dewars Farm Quarry, features a slew of tracks etched into the limestone made by prehistoric creatures over 166 million years ago.
Experts believe the tracks come from two dinosaurs, a long-necked Cetiosaurus and the meat-eating Megalosaurus, as they crossed the mud of a once-tropical lagoon.
The discovery was made by Gary Johnson, a worker at the quarry, who initially thought the tracks were just abnormalities in the ground.
However, on closer inspection, it dawned on him that the “surreal” discovery could actually be dinosaur tracks.
Over the summer, a team of over 100 excavated the site and discovered five different trackways crossing over 150m of the formerly muddy ground.
But experts believe there could be more tracks yet to be discovered as more of the quarry site is unearthed.
It’s unclear exactly why the tracks are so well preserved, but scientists believe the muddy prints may have been covered by sediment that kept the tracks in perfect condition.
Reflecting on the findings, Prof Kirsty Edgar, a micropalaeontologist from the University of Birmingham, said as per the BBC: "This is one of the most impressive track sites I've ever seen, in terms of scale, in terms of the size of the tracks."
"You can step back in time and get an idea of what it would have been like, these massive creatures just roaming around, going about their own business."
The dig will feature in an upcoming episode of Digging for Britain, which is due to air on BBC Two at 20:00 on January 8.
Over the years, the UK has become a hotbed of dinosaur discoveries from prehistoric prints on the nation’s beaches to ancient bones belonging to well-preserved dinosaurs.
In 2023, engineers in the Isle of Wight discovered the footprints of what’s believed to be a Mantellisaurus when assessing sea defences in Yaverland.
Then, in 2021, a four-year-old girl in Wales uncovered the fossilised footprint of a 220 million-year-old dinosaur, although experts were unable to identify what type of dinosaur it came from.
The Isle of Skye in Scotland has also been the site of various discoveries, including the well-preserved footprint of a theropod known to be a close relative of the T-rex.
