Largest accumulation of dinosaur footprints discovered in Bolivia

The largest accumulation of dinosaur footprints have been discovered in Bolivia.

A team of palaeontologists, mostly from California's Loma Linda University have discovered and meticulously documented 16,600 such footprints left by theropods, the dinosaur group that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex.

Their study, based on six years of regular field visits and published last week in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One, reports this finding represents the highest

number of teropod footprints recorded anywhere in the world.

The dinosaurs that ruled and roamed this region also made awkward attempts to swim here, according to the study, scratching at what was squishy lake-bottom sediment to leave another 1,378 traces.

They pressed their claws into the mud just before water levels rose and sealed their tracks protecting them from centuries of erosion, scientists said.