Man finds 100million-year-old dinosaur footprint under his table in ‘rare’ find

Experts used 3D scanners to confirm the footprints found across several stones belonged to plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods that were an incredible eight-metres long

A man was left stunned after finding dinosaur footprints underneath his table.

The surprising discovery earlier this month in the courtyard of a restaurant in southwest China is believed to be 100 million years old.

An eagle-eyed customer called Ou Hongtao was suspicious when he spotted the imprints along several ground stones on the property in Leshan city in the Sichuan province.

Dinosaur experts were soon called in and they confirmed that the sizeable depressions were indeed those of omnivorous dinosaurs called sauropods.

Using 3D scanners the team estimated that the footprints belonged to two of the species, specifically brontosauruses, that were around a huge eight-metres long.

These types of dinosaurs lived during the early Cretaceous era, a geological period that lasted from approximately 145 to 66 million years ago, and had very long necks with small heads – they are considered the largest land animal ever to have existed.

Dr Lida Xing, a palaeontologist who was called out to the finding told CCN that “this discovery is actually like a jigsaw, adding a piece of evidence to Sichuan’s Cretaceous period and the diversity of dinosaurs.”

Some experts think that China is going through something of a “fossil renaissance” with many new “exciting” finds popping up – in particular dinosaur footprints.

However, Dr Xing said that the country’s developments and regular building work in urban areas has made it hard to study fossils, making the discovery in this restaurant all the more “rare”.

The team involved have said they now aim to visit sites within 48 hours of receiving reports in case any evidence of dinosaurs is “destroyed in days” by construction workers.

This is the first time that such footprints have been found in Leshan and the precious artefacts are now safely protected behind a fence in the restaurant’s outdoor space after the owner erected one.

Dr Xing concluded the dinosaurs could “been accelerating while running into the woods ” and that they lived during a time when the giant reptiles “really flourished” in the region.

Across the waters from China in nearby Japan a recent development in fossils found in 2008 suggested that an ‘Edward Scissorshands’-type dinosaur could have once roamed the planet.

New thoughts on how dinosaur bones are classified led to the fossils being revisited and the identification of a new species with giant claws that has been compared with the title character from Tim Burton’s 1990 fantasy film.