In a small town of Chinaa family was shocked to discover that the stone path from his house preserved dinosaur footprints at least 180 million years old.
The news was announced at the end of November 2025, after a team of local researchers published a scientific study on the fossils in question, according to the chinese newspaper Guangming Daily.
It all started decades ago in What Villagein the province of Sichuansouthwest of the Asian country. In July 1998according to the same newspaper, two brothers named Ding Yongfu y Ding Yongjian They extracted several slab-shaped stone blocks from a stonemason of the area and They placed them in their house to use them as a path.
As time passed, the stone path remained in place, going unnoticed. However, one day, about 19 years later, the situation changed.
A revealing finding
At the beginning of 2017in the middle of a growing interest of local residents in dinosaursbrothers and the rest of the family they paid attention at some private brands formed in the stone blocks and thought about the possibility that maybe they could be related with those prehistoric animals.
Sichuan province has abundant fossils of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals —particularly in the Sichuan Basin—, according to the local news and culture portal China.org.cn.
In April of that same year, according to Guangming Dailythe daughter of one of the two brothers (Yongfu), known as Ding Lipublished photos of the stone blocks on the Internet with the intention that an expert on the subject would offer their opinion about the discovery.
At that time, according to the chinese newspaper Global Timesthe images aroused the curiosity of Zigong Dinosaur Museumlocated in the same region.
Dinosaur footprints on one of the stone blocks. Photo: Xing Lida/Via Guangming Daily.A month later, after an analysis carried out by the institution’s specialists, it was determined that the marks on the stone blocks They actually corresponded to dinosaur footprints.
After receiving authorization from the brothers, the museum kept the fossil remains to preserve them and carry out a exhaustive investigation.
«Subsequently, this research mainly advanced our Understanding Early Jurassic Ecosystems in the Sichuan Basin,» he told Global Times the dinosaur expert and associate professor at the China University of Geosciences (Beijing), Xing Lida, who was one of the authors of the scientific study of the paleontological pieces in question. This job was recently published in the Journal of Palaeogeography.
On November 29, 2025according to Guangming Dailya team made up of academics from the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, China University of Geosciences and other institutions publicly disseminated the results of his research about the fossil remains of Wuli Village.
In total, they detected 413 dinosaur footprints. Photo: Xing Lida/Via Guangming Daily.The academics’ scientific study revealed, according to the same media, that eight slab-shaped stone blocks on the brothers’ path contain a total of 413 dinosaur footprints. These paleontological pieces date back to Early Jurassicbetween 190 and 180 million years ago.
What were the footprints characterized by?
The most of the printswith an average length of 14.5 cm, belonged to specimens of theropods. These prehistoric animals were bipedal dinosaursmostly carnivores, characterized by having hollow bones and three claws on each end. In addition, the experts also found footprints—the largest reaching 22.5 cm in length—of sauropodsdinosaurs quadrupedal herbivores of enormous size.
On the other hand, the researchers also detected dinosaur tail drag marks on the stone blocks. «The tail prints of bipedal dinosaurs are extremely rareand there are different opinions about its causes,» Xing told Guangming Daily.
According to Global Timesthe professor at the China University of Geosciences theorized that theropods could have left these marks when moving slowly through lake environments —areas near lakes—, since they probably They stopped to observe the surroundings or adopted aggressive postures during interactions with other dinosaurs.
A 3D analysis of the stone block revealed dinosaur tail drag marks. Photo: Xing Lida/Via Guangming Daily.For its part, the Chinese news agency Xinhua noted that the scientific study suggests that theropods could have had complex behaviors and movement patterns very similar to those of modern birds.
«This discovery provides crucial evidence for understand the evolution from dinosaurs to bird locomotion. The most important finding of the study comes from a detailed biomechanical analysis that indicates that these small theropods used a way of running on the ground similar to that of modern birdsreaching estimated speeds of between 5.8 and 8.6 kilometers per hour“Xing said in an interview with Global Times.
