Representatives of at least six genera of prehistoric animals have been well preserved while wandering along the coast.
In the British county of Kent, traces of at least six different types of dinosaurs have been found that inhabited the south of England at the end of the Early Cretaceous period, 110 million years ago. The discovery took place on the rocky coast of Folkestone, where storm and wind erode the coastline, allowing more fossils to be seen.
Traces belong to ankylosaurs, theropods and ornithopods of different genera. Paleontologist Philip Hadland found the first examples of prints in 2011, but the guess that dinosaurs left them was too bold, and the scientist had to conduct additional searches and convince the scientific community. As a result, numerous isolated tracks were found, as well as a chain, indicating a “walk” of one animal. It may have been Ornithopodichnus: similar, albeit smaller, footprints were found in China in 2014 and date from the same end of the Cretaceous.
The largest of the tracks – 80 cm wide and 65 cm long – was identified as belonging to an iguanodon: these ornithischian dinosaurs could reach 10 meters in length, but they fed on plants.
In the Late Cretaceous period, this part of Britain was a shallow sea, but finds show that the sea was already receding: the Folkestone Formation was tidal, and land animals came here in search of food.
The research results are published in the journal Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association. This is the first evidence of the presence of dinosaurs in this area, moreover, these are the last dinosaurs living in the territory of modern Great Britain.
