Overview
- The find spans Valle di Fraele in Lombardy, with footprints etched into near-vertical dolomite walls forming trackways hundreds of meters long.
- Prints up to about 40 centimeters across preserve toe and claw marks, with preliminary dating to the Late Triassic around 210 million years ago.
- Initial analyses point to prosauropod herbivores, early relatives of later sauropods, based on footprint morphology and regional fossil parallels.
- Parallel pathways and clustered traces indicate synchronized herd movement and possibly defensive grouping, according to paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso.
- The site was photographed on September 14 by naturalist Elio Della Ferrera and announced by Regione Lombardia, with a December 16 briefing at Palazzo Lombardia set to show images and Carabinieri-shot videos.