Dinosaur Footprint

The discovery of footprints in the Arabian Peninsula is not a rare occurrence. Every now and then, scientists would find fossils, footprints, and whatnot in the area. Recently, the discovery of sauropod footprints in the coastal areas of Yemen may mean more than just a typical discovery, however. For several years, scientists have been burning brows over the herding behaviors of sauropods. This recent discovery gave light to research and studies being done in these four-legged dinosaurs.
Sauropod means ‘lizard’s foot’ in Greek. They were the largest animals to have ever walked on the face of the earth. Their most prominent feature is their size. A “dwarf” Sauropod is about 20 feet long. They have long legs and tails attached to their bodies. They might be big but they are herbivores. Their only competitor in terms of size is the Blue whale. These Quadropedalled dinosaurs rose to about 13 feet, making them as tall as the length of a bus or even longer.

The footprints suggest that the herd was composed of 11 giant dinosaurs and a single dinosaur that used its hind legs for walking. These footprints vary in sizes, suggesting that the group was probably composed of adult and young dinosaurs as well. In trying to keep up, small dinosaurs with shorter strides took more steps.

Their tracks were found on an old waterway that has dried up. One can easily assume that the cause of their wandering was search for food. The mudflat probably served as a highway for the Sauropods and the rest of the dinosaurs because of the fact that it has less tree covers. Another group of tracks was located in the area. It headed towards the opposite direction and most probably belonged to Ornithopods. Ornithopods are bird-hipped dinosaurs which basically start out small and continually grow in size. These bipedalled dinosaurs were considered to be a successful group of herbivores. Scientists speculated that it is very much unlikely that the Sauropods were threatened by the Ornithopods since they were all herbivores. But there are strong suspicions of finding remains of big carnivorous dinosaurs since they are most likely to lurk in places where their possible preys live.

Several fossils of some dinosaurs have been discovered all over the African region. These fossils date back about 150 million years ago, same epoch as those tracks found in Yemen. This discovery leads to the assumption that dinosaurs co-existed within the area of the Arabian Peninsula.