During a casual beach walk along the coast of South Wales, a 10-year-old girl named Tegan made an extraordinary discovery that has captivated paleontologists: 200 million-year-old dinosaur footprints. The coastal region, long considered a “prehistoric hotspot,” yielded a significant find when Tegan and her mother, Claire, stumbled upon the ancient tracks. Measuring 75 cm (30 in) apart, the five footprints make humans seem minuscule by comparison.
Cindy Howells, a dinosaur expert at the National Museum Wales, identified the prints as belonging to a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha. “It’s quite a significant find—the buzz you get when someone contacts us with a definite dinosaur find, it’s amazing,” Howells remarked to the BBC. Until recently, Wales was not considered heavily populated by dinosaurs due to the scarcity of fossil finds. However, discoveries like Tegan’s have begun to change that narrative, revealing a continuous sequence of dinosaurs in Wales over 15 million years.
Picture courtesy: House 7 Creative
The tracks likely belong to a Camelotia dinosaur, an early sauropodomorph known for its long neck, tail, large body, and small head. Despite their impressive size, these dinosaurs remain largely mysterious due to the limited number of specimens discovered. Howells speculates that the herbivorous Camelotia left these prints, noting that similar bones were found on the other side of the Bristol Channel.
Though the footprints still need scientific verification, their consistent pattern—a left foot, right foot, left, and another right—suggests they are genuine. This discovery not only adds to the understanding of dinosaur history in Wales but also immortalizes Tegan’s name alongside the first dinosaur prints found in Wales in 1879. With the recent excavation of a complete 201-million-year-old dracoraptor skeleton from the same beach, South Wales is emerging as a leading site for dinosaur tracks, particularly from the Triassic period.