FOOTPRINTS found on a South Wales beach are thought to have been left more than 200 million years ago by an early dinosaur.
They were most likely made by one of the first sauropods, experts believe.
The group included the huge diplodocus and brachiosaurus that lived in what is now North America in the late Jurassic period 50 million years later.
The fossilized prints, about 20in long, were discovered in Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, in 2020 by amateur palaeontologist Kerry Rees.
She reported her find to the Natural History Museum, where Dr Susannah Maidment and Prof Paul Barrett carried out an investigation and now believe they date from the Triassic period.
Dr Maidment said: “We know early sauropods were living in Britain at the time, as bones of Camelotia, a very early sauropod, have been found in Somerset in rocks dated to the same period.
“We don’t know if this species was the track maker but it is another clue which suggests something like it could have made these tracks.”
Prof Barrett added: “These types of tracks are not particularly common worldwide, so we believe this is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Triassic life in the UK.
“The record of Triassic dinosaurs in this country is fairly small, so anything we can find from the period adds to our picture of what was going on at that time.”
