A footprint unearthed in 1958 by a teenage fossil hunter in Albion, a Brisbane suburb in Queensland, Australia, has now been officially recognized as the continent’s earliest confirmed dinosaur track. Dating back approximately 230 million years (Late Triassic period), this find suggests dinosaurs inhabited the contemporary Brisbane area much sooner than paleontologists previously estimated. The research team’s findings were published in The Alcheringa, an Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.
The 18.5 cm long track was discovered in the Petrie Quarry (part of the Aspley Formation) in 1958, accompanied by a slab bearing a narrow linear groove interpreted as a potential tail drag mark.
Both specimens were retrieved from the quarry before any site redevelopment and have since resided in several university teaching collections.
“This is the only dinosaur fossil ever found within Australia’s capital city, demonstrating how significant global discoveries can sometimes be overlooked,” stated Anthony Romilio from the University of Queensland. “Subsequent urbanization has rendered the original location inaccessible, meaning this impression is the sole surviving evidence of dinosaurs in that locale.”
Despite being fragmented, the Albion foot impression clearly preserves three forward-pointing toes and exhibits a fan-like shape with a slight dominance of the middle digit, consistent with a bipedal dinosaur.
Detailed 3D modeling and morphometric analysis indicate the track is highly similar to the ichnogenus Evazoum, a type of footprint elsewhere associated with early sauropodomorph dinosaurs.
Based on the size of the foot track, Dr. Romilio and his colleague, Professor Bruce Runnegar, estimated the dinosaur’s hip height to be around 78 cm and its weight approximately 144 kg.
Applying common scaling equations, they calculate a theoretical maximum running speed of about 60 km per hour.
Since no skeletal remains of dinosaurs have yet been discovered in the Aspley Formation, this track stands as the sole direct proof of their presence at that specific time and location.
“It is highly probable that the dinosaur was wading in or alongside a body of water when it left this footprint, which was subsequently preserved in sandstone used for constructing buildings across Brisbane millions of years later,” commented Romilio. “Without the foresight shown in preserving these materials, Brisbane’s dinosaur history would remain entirely unknown.”
“This is a superb example of a singular type of fossil, as the impression was made in sedimentary rock by a large animal,” remarked Professor Runnegar.
The tail mark, measuring about 13 cm long, aligns with structures sometimes interpreted as tail drags on dinosaur tracks, but the authors caution that without in-situ impressions, it cannot be definitively attributed to a dinosaur.
“While the shallow linear groove preserved on the tail block morphologically conforms to described tail-drag traces, its identification remains uncertain without associated manus or pes prints and in an ex situ setting,” they asserted. “Although such grooves are sometimes linked to tail contact on prosauropod tracks, they are typically found on, or very close to, the midline of those trackways. This is not the case here.”
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