Dinosaur footprints in Rajasthan, India trace back to Pterosaurs or the flying dinosaurs which existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period (228 to 66 million years ago).
The area around Jaisalmer, Rajasthan in India has few limestone formations that represent sediments laid down in the Middle Jurassic.
The outcrops and the fossils contained in this are are providing scientists with a glimpse into life in the Early to Middle Jurassic.
An outcrop of exposed Jurassic aged sediments on the Jodhpur-Jaisalmer highway, close to the village of Thaiat has yielded a number of trace fossils including Pterosaur and three-toed dinosaur footprints.
This are is close to the tensed India-Pakistan border, so not much could be derived beyond a limit.
Amongst the footprints representing Jurassic dinosaurs at least two kinds have been identified. Firstly, there are the small three-toed prints of a little Theropod dinosaur known as Grallator.
The name Grallator is an ichnogenus, a name given to a genus of animal that is only known from trace fossils. Some of the prints, representing the hind feet of this biped are five centimetres in length.
It is likely that this little dinosaur was about the size of a chicken.
Larger three-toed prints have also been identified. These tridactyl (three-toed) prints measure approximately thirty centimetres long and must have been made by a much larger creature.
It is difficult to speculate what sort of dinosaur made such prints, but similar prints found in European strata of roughly the same geological age have been assigned to Tetanurae Theropods such as Megalosaurs, whereas, it is possible that these prints could represent another type of Theropod such as a member of the Neoceratosauria or a Coelophysid.
During the Early Jurassic the Theropoda group of meat-eating dinosaurs rapidly evolved and a number of new families evolved.
The larger, tridactyl prints have been assigned to the ichnogenus Eurontes (Eurontes giganteus).
These discoveries just prove what was written 5100 years back in Bhagavata Purana to be true.
Huge flying birds (Jayatu and Sampathi) were described in Ramayana too, and the idea humans controlling Pterosaurs to fly was used in Avatar movie (Ikrans and Mak Tao).
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