Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com –  Dinosaurs are long gone, but their tracks have been preserved for millions of years, and we find evidence of these prehistoric animals in the most surprising places. Today it may be difficult to imagine dinosaurs once roamed European countries, but well-preserved fossils of these prehistoric creatures give us a unique glimpse into a much different world before dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous Period went extinct about 65 million years ago.

Lilly Wilder, a 4-year-old girl in Wales in the southwestern U.K. has made a startling discovery that is now causing great excitement among paleontologists worldwide.

The dinosaur footprint was discovered on a beach near Barry in south Wales, the U.K. PH๏τo courtesy for National Museum of Wales via Instagram

While walking with her father on a beach near Bendricks Bay in southern Wales Lily spotted a well-preserved imprint is thought to date back 220 million years. What prehistoric animal left the imprint is still a mystery, but experts have conjectured that the dinosaur was about 75 centimeters tall and 2.5 meters (8 feet) long.

“It was on a low rock, shoulder height for Lily, and she just spotted it and said, ‘look Daddy,'” Sally Wilder, Lilly’s mother, told NBC News on Saturday.

“She (Lilly) is really excited but doesn’t quite grasp how amazing it is,” she said, adding that it was actually Lilly’s grandmother that encouraged them to reach out to experts with the pH๏τos they had taken.

According to Cindy Howells, a paleontology curator at Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum of Wales, the dinosaur was likely a slender member of the dinosaur family that walked on its two hind legs and ate small insects and animals.

“It’s 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,” she said.

“It really is stunning preservation … You can see every detail of the muscles and where the joints are in the foot,” added Howells.

“The fossil will now be transferred to the National Museum Cardiff to be further examined and preserved. The museum said Lilly and her classmates will be invited for a showing once the pandemic is over, and Lilly will be listed as an “official finder.”

The National Museum Wales said in a statement that there were no fossilized bones from this 220 million-year-old dinosaur, but similar imprints discovered in the U.S. have belonged to the dinosaur coelophysis,” the Daily Sabah reports.

Bendricks Bay is also known for being an important paleontology site housing “dinosaur tracks of the Triᴀssic Period” and “crocodilian-type reptiles.”

The discovery follows a recent find by archeologists in Argentina, who found the fossilized remains of a gigantic, 98-million-year-old sauropod for what may be the largest-known dinosaur.

Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Staff Writer