Australian scientist helps make discovery with fossilised footprint of dinosaur in China

SYDNEY, April 20 (Xinhua) -- An international team of palaeontologists, including one from the Australian state of Queensland, has discovered a fossilized footprint of a stegosaur.

The print, believed to be about 100 million years old, was found in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

University of Queensland researcher Anthony Romilio was a member of the team that investigated the track, originally found by Associate Professor Lida Xing from the China University of Geosciences (Beijing).

Romilio told Xinhua on Tuesday that the print, which is less than 6 cm long, is from the world's known smallest stegosaur.

He said the footprint was made by a "herbivorous, armored dinosaur known broadly as a stegosaur - the family of dinosaurs that includes the famed stegosaurus."

He said the discovery was "very important because tiny footprints are virtually unknown for any of the armored dinosaurs."

"Like the stegosaurus, this little dinosaur probably had spikes on its tail and bony plates along its back as an adult," Romilio said.

"The tiny track shows that this dinosaur had been moving with its heel lifted off the ground, much like a bird or cat does today."