Dinosaur tracks show the “synchronized herds” found in the Italian region that will host the Winter Olympics

Hundreds of yards of dinosaur tracks with toes and claws have been found in the Italian Alps in the region that will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, authorities said Tuesday.

“This set of dinosaur feet is one of the largest collections in Europe, in the whole world,” said Attilio Fontana, head of the Lombardy region in northern Italy, during a press conference.

The tracks, which are more than 200 million years old, are located in the Stelvio National Park, in the area between the cities of Bormio and Livigno, which hosts part of the Games.

Nature photographer Elio Della Ferrera first saw the seals in September in an area almost perpendicular to the cliffs.

Some are about 16 inches in diameter.

The collection “extends hundreds of meters and represents a series of animal behavior, because in addition to seeing animals moving together, there are places where these animals meet,” said Fontana.

Della Ferrera called paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso from Milan’s Natural History Museum, who assembled a team of Italian experts to examine the site.

The museum released many photos of the footprints found in the so-called dinosaur valley on social media.

“It is a great scientific legacy,” said Dal Sasso in a regional press release.

“Parallel movements are clear evidence of herds moving in synchrony, and there are also traces of complex behavior, such as groups of animals gathered in a circle, perhaps for self-defense.”

“Ideas of toes and even nails”

The tracks, currently covered by snow and off-track, are preserved in Upper Triassic dolomitic rocks, dating back about 210 million years.

Most of the footprints are long and made by bipeds. The best preserved ones have at least four toes.

That suggests they are prosauropods, herbivorous dinosaurs with long necks and small heads, considered to be ancestors of the giant sauropods of the Jurassic period such as Brontosaurus, experts say.

Prosauropods had sharp claws, and adults could reach 33 meters in length.

There may also be tracks of dinosaurs and archosaurs, the ancestors of crocodiles, the press release said.

The prints are on an almost vertical slope due to the formation of the Alpine chain.

But when the dinosaurs moved in this area, they created tidal flats that reached hundreds of kilometers, and the surrounding area was hot.

“The tracks were made when the sediment was still soft and full of water, on the wide flats around the Tethys Ocean,” said technologist Fabio Massimo Petti, referring to the former ocean.

“The plastic of that very fine calcareous mud, now turned into rocks, in places has preserved some really amazing anatomical details, such as the appearance of toes and even nails,” he said.

The steps were then covered by the fossils that protected them, but with the uplift of the Alps and the erosion of the mountain, they have been restored to visibility.

“Since the layers containing the tracks are diverse and overlapping, we have a unique opportunity to study the evolution of animals and their habitat over time,” said geologist Fabrizio Berra. “Like reading the pages of a stone book.”

Another later discovery of a dinosaur track

Researchers have found more dinosaur footprints recently.

Earlier this month, paleontologists in Bolivia announced the discovery and carefully documented it 16,600 footprints left by theropodsa group of dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus rex.

In March, scientists in England discovered a 650-meter track of dinosaur footprints made 160 million years ago by giant sauropod dinosaurs.

In January, British researchers found more 200 dinosaur steps from 166 million years old in what is believed to be the largest discovery in the United Kingdom.

That discovery was announced a few months after a team of archaeologists made the discovery corresponding to dinosaur feet on what are now two separate continents, separated by thousands of miles of ocean.

In October 2023, UK engineers developed a “amazing discovery” of dinosaur feet that experts believe may have come from mantellisaurus, a type of dinosaur that had only three toes on each foot and walked on its hind legs.