Middle Jurassic two-toed dinosaur footprints found in Iran! Paleontologists in China and Iran have recently announced that they have discovered the mysterious footprints of two-toed dinosaurs in the Middle Jurassic strata of the Elbers Mountains in northern Iran, which means that a fierce dinosaur with feathers roamed Iranian land 65.438+0.7 billion years ago. Prior to this, the footprints of two-toed dinosaurs were mainly found in China and South Korea.

Xing Lida, associate professor of China Geo University, Nasrallah Abasi, associate professor of Iranian Zanzhan University, and Professor Martin Lockley, curator of the Footprint Museum of the University of Colorado, described these footprints in the recently published Journal of Historical Biology.

Well-preserved deinonychus footprints. Photo by Xing Lida

Iran is located in the "heart zone" connecting the Middle East, Asia and Europe. The towering Elbers Mountains run across northern Iran, with a length of 960 kilometers from east to west and an average width of 90 kilometers. Damawande Peak is 567 1 m above sea level, which is the highest peak in Iran. In the past few years, Iranian geologists have discovered a batch of dinosaur footprints in Baladai area, and invited their colleagues in China to do a lot of detailed field investigations.