Egypt discovers 70m-year-old dinosaur footprints

Sixteen dinosaur footprints dating back 70 million years have been found in the Nubian sands in Egypt, President of Cairo University, Mohamed Othman El-Khosht, announced yesterday.

El-Khosht told local media that the discovery was carried out by a collaborative study team from Cairo and New Valley universities. The dinosaurs are thought to have been both herbivores and carnivores and ranged in size from 500 to 900 kilogrammes, based on calculations from the lengths and sizes of their footprints. They are also estimated to have been four or five metres long.

“We’ve found 16 dinosaur footprints occurred in the Upper Cretaceous strata known as the Nubian Sandstone Formation in the south Eastern Desert, Egypt,” paleontologist Mohammad Qarni Abdul-Gawad explained.

“Tracks discovered at that site are believed to be footprints of a dinosaur from more than 70 million years ago.”

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