The study, published on SMU’s website, determined that dinosaurs walked between Brazil and Cameroon during the Early Cretaceous period, approximately 120 million years ago.
More than 260 matching dinosaur footprints were found on the continents at both ends of the Atlantic Ocean, which were approximately 6,000 kilometers apart after Pangea broke apart.
MATCHING FOOTPRINTS
Along with the matching footprints, the researchers found evidence of similar basin, river and lake formations in the Borborema region of Brazil and northern Cameroon.
Diana Vineyard, one of the researchers who conducted the study, said that most of the footprint fossils found belonged to three-toed theropod dinosaurs, while some belonged to four-legged sauropods and bird-hipped ornithischians.
Louis Jacobs, the lead author of the study, noted that the footprints were very similar in age, shape and geological condition.
Jacobs stated that footprints were fossilized in the alluvium and mud layers at the bottom of ancient lakes and rivers, and that dinosaurs used this geological region between the two continents known today as South America and Africa as a passageway between the two continents.
FOOTPRINTS SHED LIGHT ON THE SPECIES’ BEHAVIOR AND HABITS
Stating that dinosaur fossils and footprints provide unique information about species that roamed the planet millions of years ago, Jacobs emphasized that the remains shed light on details such as dinosaurs’ habitats and feeding habits.
“Footprints are evidence of dinosaur behavior, how they walked or ran, who they walked with and in what environment, where they went and where they were when they did it,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said that rainfall levels at the time helped create tropical rainforest-type areas with dense vegetation, and that animals came to the basins from both present-day Africa and South America, and their populations mixed.
Jacobs said that the continents moving away from each other as a result of the separation of the supercontinent Pangea caused a break in genetic continuity, which is the fundamental driving force of evolution.
