Two years ago, Emese M. Bordy, a sedimentologist at the University of Cape Town, was flipping through an obscure dissertation from the 1960s when a clue leapt out at her. It was an image of a footprint on a farm located on the northern Karoo Basin of South Africa. But the image suggested to Dr. Bordy that there was more to learn about the prehistoric animals that had lived on that dying supercontinent. First, Dr. Bordy and her colleagues were able to track down the farm’s owner with the help of a local historian. There, the team not only found the pictured footprint, but also discovered two dozen other prints left 183 million years ago by carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs, as well as small creatures called synapsids.

Source: New York Times January 29, 2020 18:56 UTC