Several stone pits at the restaurant in Leshan, Sichuan province, contained the tracks of two sauropods, a type of dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous period, said Lida Xing, a paleontologist and associate professor at the China University of Geosciences. Xing’s team confirmed the discovery on Saturday using a 3D scanner. Sauropods, known for their long necks and tails, were the largest animals to ever walk the Earth. They could be as long as three school buses and were so heavy that the ground had to shake as they walked. The two sauropods that left the tracks probably had a body length of about 8 meters (26 feet), Xing said. The tracks of two sauropods, discovered in Leshan, Sichuan, China. Courtesy of Lida Xing Although many dinosaur fossils from the Jurassic period have been unearthed in Sichuan, far fewer fossils have been found from the Cretaceous period. The Cretaceous period is when “dinosaurs really flourished,” Xing said, adding, “this discovery is actually like a puzzle, adding a piece of evidence to Sichuan’s Cretaceous period and dinosaur diversity.” China’s rapid development in recent decades has made paleontology — the study of ancient life through fossils — more difficult, Xing said. “It’s rare to find fossils in the city, because they were all covered by buildings,” he said. His team aims to visit sites of potential discoveries within 48 hours of receiving a report, for fear they “may be destroyed by construction work in a few days”, he added. Before it became a restaurant, the site was used as a chicken farm, with dinosaur tracks buried by layers of dirt and sand — protecting them from erosion and weathering. Lida Xing and his team visited the site after receiving a report of possible dinosaur tracks from a restaurant. Courtesy of Lida Xing The dirt was only removed about a year ago when the restaurant opened. The owner liked the natural look of the uneven stone, so he left it untouched instead of smoothing it with cement, Xing said. As a result, “these traces were well protected,” Xing said. “When we went there, we found that the tracks were very deep and quite obvious, but no one had thought about (the possibility).” The restaurant owner has now fenced off the site to prevent people from stepping on the pits and may build a shed to further protect the tracks, Xing said, adding that it was a welcome sign of greater scientific interest among the public. “If it was 10 years ago, no one would send me pictures of suspected dinosaurs (fossils or footprints),” he said. “But now, I get quite a few from regular citizens and confirm many dinosaur tracks every year.” Experts investigate dinosaur tracks in the courtyard of a restaurant in Leshan, Sichuan Province, China. The results were announced publicly on July 16
