Footprints of Cretaceous Beasts Discovered at Diamond Mine

[Judi Lynn]

Footprints of Cretaceous Beasts Discovered at Diamond Mine
Nov 6, 2014 05:40 PM ET // by Laura Geggel, LiveScience

A Cretaceous gang — made up of a large, long-necked dinosaur; a raccoon-size mammal; and a crocodilelike creature — plodded toward a freshwater lake during the Early Cretaceousperiod 118 million years ago, leaving their footprints behind in a sedimentary band of earth.

It's possible that the animals satiated their thirst at different times, but left their track marks all in the same area, the researchers said.

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The ancient track marks were discovered at Angola's Catoca diamond mine, the fourth-largest diamond mine in the world. The mammalian tracks are a particularly rare find, as most warm-blooded animals at that time were no larger than rats, and this one appears to be larger, researchers said. [See Photos of the Ancient Footprints in Angola]

Scrappy Mammal Survived Dinosaur Extinction

"Mammals evolved from very small-sized individuals," said Marco Marzola, a paleontologist with the PaleoAngola Project, an international program investigating vertebrate paleontology in Angola. "The first mammals were the size of a squirrel or even smaller, like a mouse. They evolved to become bigger in size, but only after the time of the dinosaurs."

More:
http://news.discovery.com/earth/rocks-fossils/footprints-of-cretaceous-beasts-discovered-at-diamond-mine-141106.htm#mkcpgn=rssnws1