学校に２０年前から置かれていた岩に恐竜の足跡群　豪

【シドニーＡＦＰ＝時事】オーストラリアの学校に２０年以上置かれていた岩から、恐竜の足跡の化石が多数確認された。科学者が１２日、発表した。（写真は、オーストラリア・クイーンズランド州ビロエラで３Ｄイメージングと光フィルターを使用して捉えた、恐竜の足跡が刻まれた岩の画像）
　恐竜の足跡の化石が見つかったのは、クイーンズランド州バナナシャイア郡の学校。学校側が調査を依頼し、クイーンズランド大学の古生物学者アンソニー・ロミリオ氏が分析を行った。
　ロミリオ氏によると、岩には１平方メートル弱の範囲に化石化した３本指の足跡が６６刻まれており、約２億年前のジュラ紀初期にさかのぼるものだという。
　同氏は、「オーストラリアでは、この時代の恐竜の化石化した骨は発見されておらず、恐竜の個体数分布や動き、行動を垣間見ることができる前例のない史料だ」と指摘している。
　この岩は２００２年、炭鉱で発見されたもので、珍しい足跡に気付いた炭鉱作業員が、ビロエラにある学校に寄贈していた。
　ロミリオ氏によると、一部の教師は、この足跡を作りものだと考えていたという。
　６６の足跡について、ロミリオ氏は「アノモエプス・スカンブス」と呼ばれる恐竜のものだと説明している。
　ロミリオ氏らの研究論文は、査読付き学術誌「ヒストリカル・バイオロジー」に発表された。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2025/03/12-17:12）

A trove of fossilised dinosaur footprints has been found on a slab of rock gathering dust inside an Australian school, scientists said on Wednesday.
The rock went largely unnoticed for 20 years until the school, in Queensland's rural Banana shire, asked paleontologist Anthony Romilio to examine a cluster of three-toed track marks.
Romilio said the slab was stamped with dozens of fossilised footprints dating to the early Jurassic period some 200 million years ago.
It showed one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur footprints ever documented in Australia, he said.
It's an unprecedented snapshot of dinosaur abundance, movement and behaviour from a time when no fossilised dinosaur bones have been found in Australia, said Romilio, from the University of Queensland.
Significant fossils like this can sit unnoticed for years, even in plain sight.
It's incredible to think that a piece of history this rich was resting in a schoolyard all this time.
Coal miners dug up the slab in 2002 and, noticing the unusual footprints, gifted it to a school in the small town of Biloela, where it was eventually displayed in the foyer.
The rock sat there until researchers started asking around for any dinosaur fossils discovered in the area.
Some of the teachers thought this was a replica rather than the real thing, Romilio said.
Everyone didn't quite realise what they actually have.
They definitely knew it was a dinosaur footprint. But not the level of detail that a researcher like myself would go into.
- 'My jaw dropped' -
Romilio said 66 separate track impressions were found on the slab, which had a surface area of less than one square metre.
They belonged to a dinosaur called Anomoepus scambus -- a small and chunky plant eater that walked on two legs, he said.
Fossilised footprints, even though they are the most abundant of dinosaur fossils, tend to be cast aside by a lot of researchers.
They don't have the sex appeal of a fossilised bone.
The vast majority of dinosaur fossils, they're not found by paleontologists. They're actually found by people on the ground.
Romilio's hunt for fossils in the region also unearthed a two-tonne boulder marking the entrance to a coal mine car park.
As I'm driving into the car park, I see one of those car park boulders to stop cars from driving on the lawn.
And it's got this clear-as-day dinosaur fossil. My jaw dropped when I saw that.
Romilio and a team of researchers published their findings in peer-reviewed journal Historical Biology.