This is the kind of story that makes archeologists, covered in dust and sweat and still searching for an elusive dinosaur bone fragment, cry in their cold tents at night. A family walking along a beach in Wales was startled when the four-year-old girl looked down and said, “Daddy, look at this.” When Daddy looked, instead of a coin or a dead fish – the kinds of things four-year-olds normally find on the beach – he saw what looked like a well-defined dinosaur’s footprint on a rock. And not just an ordinary dinosaur’s footprint either.
“This fossilised dinosaur footprint from 220 million years ago is one of the best-preserved examples from anywhere in the U.K. and will really aid paleontologists to get a better idea about how these early dinosaurs walked.”
Treasure hunters armed with sledgehammers and crowbars have raided a Welsh beach where a four-year-old girl found a 215-million-year-old dinosaur footprint.
Lily Wilder was hailed by scientists after discovering the print - described as the finest of its type found in 10 years - on a beach at Bendricks Bay near Barry.
But armed vandals have since descended on the beach to get a glimpse of her find - with environmentalists warning of several people trying to remove rocks with sledgehammers.
Vandals could face £20,000 fines for damaging the area - which is on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Treasure hunters armed with sledgehammers and crowbars have raided a Welsh beach where four-year-old Lily Wilder (pictured pointing at the footprint with her mother Sally, father Richard and baby brother George) found a 215-million-year-old dinosaur footprint
Daddy, look at this: 4-year-old discovers dinosaur footprint on the beach
Four-year-old Lily Wilder used to be afraid of dinosaurs until she discovered one of their 200-million-year-old footprints in a fossilized rock at the beach.
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Posted: Feb 01, 2021 5:07 PM ET | Last Updated: February 2
Four-year-old Lily Wilder, right, points to the fossilized dinosaur footprint she discovered while walking along a beach in Wales with her family. (Submitted by Richard Wilder)
Feb. 2 (UPI) A dinosaur footprint found by a 4-year-old girl walking with her family at a Welsh beach is now headed to a museum, where it will be displayed alongside a plaque identifying its discoverer.
Richard Wilder said his family was walking Jan. 23 on Bendricks Bay beach in south Wales when his 4-year-old daughter, Lily, called his attention to a fossilized rock.
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Wilder said the rock contained what the family believed to be a dinosaur footprint. It was almost too good to be true, how realistic it was. It was almost like someone had etched into the rock, Wilder told CBC News.
A four-year-old girl has discovered a dinosaur footprint, preserved in rock on a beach near Barry, south Wales.
The 220-million-year-old print was found by Lilly Walker and her family when they were out on a walk in their local area.
Lily was the first to spot the footprint on a loose block near the sea at Bendricks Bay, which is a well-known beach for its dinosaur footprints.
The print has been described by the National Museum of Wales Palaeontology curator as the best specimen ever found on this beach .
The fossil has been extracted from the rock and has been taken to National Museum Cardiff where it can be studied and preserved.