Hiker follows stunning footprints of ancient reptile older than DINOSAURS – and stumbles upon incredible ‘lost world’

A HIKER stumbled crossed an unbelievable "lost world" aft discovering the fossilised footprints of an past reptile older than dinosaurs.

Claudia Steffensen and her hubby were trekking successful the Italian Alps erstwhile she stopped to look astatine a airy grey stone covered successful "strange" marks.

The brace had been going on a way successful the Valtellina Orobie Mountains Park successful Lombardy successful 2023 erstwhile she uncovered the 280-million-year-old "lost world".

After realising that the bizarre marks connected the grey stone were really carnal tracks, Claudia sent photos to a probe squad who determined the footprints were those of a prehistoric reptile.

The beast who made the tracks would person roamed the satellite during the Permian play - the property adjacent earlier dinosaurs.

Further investigation of the tract led palaeontologists to hundreds of different fossilised footprints that had been made by implicit 5 taxon of past reptiles, amphibians and insects.

And contempt these animals predating dinosaurs, the fossils revealed they would person been gargantuan - possibly betwixt six and 12 feet long.

Palaeontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso confirmed successful a statement: "Dinosaurs did not yet exist, but the authors of the largest footprints indispensable inactive person been of a sizeable size – up to 2-3 metres."

The researchers besides recovered imprints of works fossils that included traces of seeds, leaves and stems.

Raindrops and waves connected the shores of a prehistoric water were besides recovered imprinted connected the past fossils.

Co-researcher and fossils specializer Lorenzo Marchetti explained however the prints were truthful well-preserved, the "imprints of fingernails and the belly tegument of immoderate animals" were adjacent uncovered.

It's believed they're successful specified bully information due to the fact that of their past proximity to water.

The past ecosystem which sat astatine arsenic precocious arsenic 10,000 feet and astatine the bottommost of valleys was capable to beryllium preserved successful fine-grained sandstone.

Co-researcher and palaeontologist Ausonio Ronchi explained successful a statement: "The footprints were made erstwhile these sandstones and shales were inactive soil and mud soaked successful h2o astatine margins of rivers and lakes, which periodically, according to the seasons, dried up.

"The summer sun, drying retired those surfaces, hardened them to the constituent that the instrumentality of caller h2o did not erase the footprints but, connected the contrary, covered them with caller clay, forming a protective layer."

And what's much the fossils were uncovered aft being hidden nether layers of snow for years.

The pre-dinosaur Permian play lasted from 299 cardinal to 252 cardinal years ago.

At the time, planetary clime warmed astatine a accelerated complaint and led to a mass-extinction lawsuit that killed a whopping 90 per cent of Earth's species.

The find of the unthinkable fossils allowed a look into an past ecosystem that was impacted by this accelerated clime emergence millions of years ago.