Hundreds of yards of dinosaur tracks with toes and claws have been found in the Italian Alps in a region that will host the 2026 Winter Olympics, authorities said Tuesday.”This set of dinosaur footprints is one of the largest collections in all of Europe, in the whole world,” Attilio Fontana, head of the Lombardy region in northern Italy, said during a news conference.The tracks, which are over 200 million years old, were discovered in the Stelvio National Park, in an area between the towns of Bormio and Livigno, which host part of the Games.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNature photographer Elio Della Ferrera first spotted the imprints in September in an almost vertical rocky slope.Some measured up to 16 inches in diameter.The collection “extends for hundreds of meters and also represents a series of animal behaviors, because in addition to seeing animals walking together, there are also places where these animals meet,” Fontana said.Della Ferrera called in paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso from Milan’s Natural History Museum, who assembled a team of Italian experts to study the site.The museum released multiple images of the footprints uncovered in the so-called valley of dinosaurs on social media.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”It’s an immense scientific heritage,” Dal Sasso said in the region’s press release.Footprints tens of meters long are clearly visible on several surfaces. At the Cime di Plator site, the fossilized footprints are imprinted with considerable depth, indicating that the dinosaurs walked on calcareous mud made very pliable by the abundant presence of water. / Credit: Elio Della Ferrera, PaleoStelvio Archive”The parallel walks are clear evidence of herds moving in synchrony, and there are also traces of more complex behaviors, such as groups of animals gathered in a circle, perhaps for defense.”More in Science”Impressions of the toes and even the claws”The tracks, currently covered by snow and off the beaten track, are preserved in Upper Triassic dolomitic rocks, dating back appr …
