Surprisingly, 100-million-year-old Saurapod tracks discovered in Chinese restaurant

According to the release, the "pits" were first noticed in the 1950s, but the homeowner at the time covered them up to level the ground out.

New owners turned the property into a restaurant around three years ago, according to associate professor Lida Xing of the Chinese University of Geosciences (Beijing), and the trenches were once more exposed. "But still nothing was thought to be unusual," Dr. Xing said.

"That was until in mid-2022 when an observant diner pointed out that they might be something more than simply holes in the ground. The footprints went unnoticed for so long, but once you know what they are, it's hard to unsee them. The region has no skeletal record of dinosaurs, so these fossilized tracks provide invaluable information about the types of dinosaurs that lived in the area."

The dinosaurs were about 10 meters long, as said by the researchers.

"We compared the size of the footprints with complete fossil skeletons. We also know the dinosaurs were taking quite short steps for such a large animal, with a walking speed of around two kilometers per hour," Dr. Romilio said.

According to Dr. Romilio, the study emphasizes how important it is for regular people to make critical scientific advancements.

"It's a testament to the value of being curious about our surroundings and paying attention to the world around us," he said.

"For some lucky people discoveries can come from unlikely places—even while you're having a bite to eat."

The study was published in Cretaceous Research.

Study abstract:

The identification of dinosaur tracks at a courtyard location in a restaurant in Leshan City, Sichuan Province, China became an international news story due to the unusual location of the discovery. Careful analysis of these ‘restaurant tracks’ indicates that they originate in the track-rich, Lower Cretaceous Jiaguan Formation, and are Brontopodus type sauropod tracks typical of the saurischian dominated Sichuan Basin ichnofauna of this epoch. Studies of the weathering of the Leshan Buddha at Mount Lingyun, a world heritage site only 5.5 km from the restaurant, indicate similar lithologies that allow estimation of weathering rates.