Huge dinosaur footprints discovered as scientists find 'dinosaur highway'

Hundreds of huge dinosaur footprints have been discovered on a so-called “dinosaur highway” in Oxfordshire.

The stunning find was uncovered in a joint effort by researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham in June 2024 and is the UK’s largest-ever dinosaur trackway site.

Around 200 huge footprints dating back 166 million years ago were found at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire imprinted into the limestone and covered in mud. The longest continuous track measured more than 150 metres in length, but could stretch even further than the current excavation site.

Experts discovered five separate trackways made by two different types of dinosaurs – four were made by a long-necked sauropod, most likely the Cetiosaurus, while the fifth belonged to a carnivorous theropod the Megalosaurus, which has a distinctive three-toed foot with claws.

Professor Kirsty Edgar, Professor of Micropalaeontology at the University of Birmingham, said: “These footprints offer an extraordinary window into the lives of dinosaurs, revealing details about their movements, interactions, and the tropical environment they inhabited.”

OUMNH/PA

The footprints were first discovered by quarry worker Gary Johnson who was driving a digger at the time.

“I was basically clearing the clay and I hit a hump, and I thought it’s just an abnormality in the ground,” he told BBC News.

“But then it got to another, 3m along, and it was a hump again. And then it went another 3m – hump again.”

Johnson knew that other dinosaur tracks had been discovered in the nearby area during the 1990s and made the realisation the humps and dips could be footprints.

“I thought, ‘I’m the first person to see them’. And it was so surreal – a bit of a tingling moment, really,” he said.

University of Birmingham/PA

Dr Duncan Murdock, Earth Scientist at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, said: “The preservation is so detailed that we can see how the mud was deformed as the dinosaur’s feet squelched in and out. Along with other fossils like burrows, shells and plants we can bring to life the muddy lagoon environment the dinosaurs walked through.”

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