Sands of time: The giant finds in western Rajasthan are estimated to be 200 million years old
In a major discovery, footprints of three species of dinosaurs have been found in the Thar desert in Rajasthan’s Jaisalmer district, proving the presence of the giant reptiles in the western part of the State, which formed the seashore to the Tethys Ocean during the Mesozoic era.
The footprints, made in the sediment or silt of the seashore, later become permanently stone-like. They belong to three species of dinosaurs — Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontes glenrosensis and Grallator tenuis. While the giganteus and glenrosensis species have 35 cm footprints, the footprint of the third species was found to be 5.5 cm.
Virendra Singh Parihar, Assistant Professor, Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, a member of the team of palaeontologists that made the discovery recently, told The Hindu on Friday that the footprints were 200 million years old. They were found near Jaisalmer’s Thaiat village.
The dinosaur species are considered to be of the theropod type, with the distinguishing features of hollow bones and feet with three digits. All the three species, belonging to the early Jurassic period, were carnivorous, said Dr. Parihar.
Eubrontes could have been 12 to 15 metres long and weighed between 500 kg and 700 kg, while the height of the Grallator is estimated to have been two metres, as much as a human, with a length of up to three metres.
Careful geological observations enabled the...
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