Dinosaur

Subject – Environment

Context – Footprints of 3 dinosaur species found in Thar.

Concept –

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 became permanently stone-like.
They belong to three species of dinosaurs — Eubrontes cf. giganteus, Eubrontesglenrosensis 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.
Footprints were 200 million years old. They were found near 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.
Eubrontes could have been 12 to 15 m long and weighed between 500 kg and 700 kg, while the height of the Grallator is estimated to have been 2 m, with a length of up to three metres.