Scientists discover 'small footprints' spanning hundreds of millions of years

Recently, scientists in South Korea found an extremely rare dinosaur skin fossil, and found the world's smallest dinosaur footprint of the entire foot scale marks, the details of which are important for scientists to understand the evolution of very small animal foot dinosaurs. The study was carried out by Kim Kyung-so, a professor of science and education at Jinzhou National University of Education in South Korea, and Yan Lida, an associate professor at China University of Geology (Beijing). The paper was published in Scientific Reports on February 14.
that less than one percent of the dinosaur footprint fossils are preserved with skin marks. What's more, different types of dinosaurs had different skin scale patterns and important morphological features.
past few years, we've been working with Korean and American scholars to find a very special footprint, the Little Dragon Footprint, the world's smallest dinosaur footprint. Common dinosaur footprints are about 20 cm to 30 cm long, but dragon footprints are only about 2 cm long. In the wild, such a small dinosaur footprint is likely to be missed if it is not carefully identified, which means that the dragon is only the size of a sparrow. What we didn't expect was skin marks found on such a small footprint. He said.
the footprints, which nearly disappeared into a massive infrastructure project in Jinzhou, South Korea. Fortunately, Hawkeye appeared in time and carried out a rescue paleontological investigation and rescue work. Yan Lida's circle has its own superhero - "Hawkeye", that is, Lida to Jin Jingxuan's nickname. When Hawkeye found the first fossil of a small dragon footprint on a broken slate and found that it had perfect skin marks, he realized that it was not an ordinary discovery, and immediately called off the entire project, and called on experts and scholars from China, the United States and other countries to carry out detailed research. These exquisite dragon footprints have a total of four, forming a trail, across 100 million years of time and space to meet humans.
" dragon footprints are found only in South Korea and China, is a special footprint of the Cretaceous period in East Asia, published in the world's 10th discovery of small dragon footprints fossil site, but also the first time the footprints of the skin marks found. He said.
paleontologists have never found such perfect skin marks, with the average diameter of the scales on the footprints less than 0.4 mm. Moreover, unlike previous scale marks, which appear only in parts of the footprint, the dragon footprint preserves the skin on the soles of the feet.
why are these skin marks so well preserved? The paper's co-author, Martin Lockley, explains that the footprints are left on a very thin layer of fine mud, like a fresh coating just a millimeter thick, applied to hard ground. When the dragon stepped on this sticky ground, the scale texture of the soles of the feet was perfectly copied. The evidence also showed that there had been a shower in the area before the footprints formed, leaving raindrops on the ground. That's because in one trail, the researchers observed that the dragon had broken a rain mark, proving that it rained first, followed by dinosaurs.
the scale pattern of the small dragon footprint is similar to that of other carnivorous animal-footed dinosaurs, but significantly different from the scale pattern on the soles of the feet of ancient birds. Other carnivorous animal-footed dinosaur footprints have previously been found to have much larger scales, which can be about two centimeters in diameter and about the size of a coin. This suggests that all animal-footed dinosaurs had similar scale patterns. The delicate, well-preserved scale pattern on the dragon's footprint, like a much larger scale of close relatives, is reduced in size and has not increased in number.
"this skin is great, not because of its small size into a dense pit, but adhere to their arrangement principles." "It's probably the ultimate secret of dinosaur skin care. (Source: Cui Xueqin, China Science Daily)