As a lifelong enthusiast of all things prehistoric, I find myself utterly captivated by this fascinating tale of dinosaur migration across the ancient continents. Having grown up with Spielberg’s Jurassic Park series and being an avid follower of paleontology, it is nothing short of awe-inspiring to see the real-life footprints left behind by our long-lost kin, mirroring the epic journeys portrayed on the silver screen.
1993 saw the premiere of “Jurassic Park” for movie enthusiasts, as legendary director Steven Spielberg transformed Michael Crichton’s vision of real-life dinosaurs into a thrilling cinematic experience. Four years later, fans returned to revisit this world in “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”, where the realm and lore of these contemporary dinosaurs grew even more expansive.
The movie starts with a family enjoying their holiday on the imaginary island of Isla Sorna, but suddenly they are assaulted by a band of small dinosaurs known as Compsognathus, or simply compys. This encounter discloses the presence of Jurassic Park’s Site B, an isolated location across the sea from the primary park, where dinosaurs were cloned before being transferred to the main site. However, due to a hurricane, the island was devastated and the dinosaurs escaped, surviving on their own since then.
As the second Jurassic film concludes, a T. rex taken captive is shipped over the sea and released on unaware San Diego residents. The concept of dinosaurs adapting and expanding into new landscapes is consistently portrayed. Interestingly, roughly 5,000 miles southward and around 120 million years back in time, real-life dinosaurs were also on the move, traversing an ancient continent to explore undeveloped coastlines of a nascent ocean.
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Paleontologists have unearthed over 260 sets of fossilized footprints, some in Brazil (South America) and others in Cameroon (Africa). Interestingly, these prints were made on the same ancient continent, but now they are divided by thousands of miles of open sea, with each site lying on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
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The footprints were made almost exclusively by three-toed theropod dinosaurs similar to The Lost World’s compys, but larger. A total of seven distinct species have been isolated: 5 theropods, ornithopod or possibly another theropod, and a sauropod. The details of the study were published in print by the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, and a PDF of the paper is available online. While the specific species involved have not yet been identified, paleontologists were able to estimate hip height, speed, and body mass of each animal, based on the characteristics of the preserved prints.
Comparing the tracks found, it appears that they belong to a similar species, as footprints were discovered on both sides of the oceanic boundary. Around 200 million years ago, our planet’s landmasses were connected in one large continent known as Pangaea. Over time, Pangaea split apart, creating two vast continents: Laurasia and Gondwana.
The supercontinent Gondwana encompassed today’s South American, African, Indian, Antarctic, and Australian landmasses, which were once tightly joined together. Approximately 140 million years ago, Africa and South America started to drift apart, while around 20 million years later, a group of dinosaurs left their footprints in the muddy edges of ancient water bodies as they roamed about. As these continents gradually moved away from each other, deep fissures or rift valleys emerged, providing a soft terrain for extinct creatures to tread on.
According to SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, “Rivers ran and pools were created in the basins.” He explained that plants sustained herbivores, forming a food chain. The muddy deposits left by these rivers and lakes have dinosaur footprints, even those of carnivores, which suggests that these river valleys served as paths for life to migrate across continents around 120 million years back.
Even without genetic modification or cushy boat rides across the sea, dinosaurs and other ancient animals found a way to spread across the globe one step at a time. And some of those steps became etched in stone so that we can walk a mile (or 3,700 of them) in the footsteps of extinct dinosaurs.
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2024-08-29 17:31