A historic drought in Texas has dried up a river flowing through Dinosaur Valley State Park, exposing tracks from giant reptiles that lived some 113 million years ago.
Photos posted on Facebook show three-toed footprints leading down a dry tree-lined riverbed, south-west of Dallas, in the southern US state.
It is "one of the longest dinosaur trackways in the world," a caption on one the posts says.
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Museum curator Wang Zhenghua, left, and Wang Fangchen, a scientist from Beijing, remove a fossilised dinosaur egg from a mountainside in Yunxian, China, where a huge deposit of dinosaur eggs was discovered last week. AFP -
A rare nest of ten dinosaur eggs, laid between 70 million to 100 million years ago, was sold at Bonham's in 1993 for $71,300. EPA -
Palaeontologist Alberto Santana of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro inspects the 110-million-year-old fossil remains of a Santanaraptor dinosaur in Rio de Janeiro in July 2000. AFP -
Scientist Jamie Powel shows the fossilised skull and jaw of a crocodile-like dinosaur dug up in Argentina's Tucuman province. Scientists said the reptile lived about 50 million years ago. Reuters -
Swiss palaeontologist Cristian Maier points to a 68-million-year-old dinosaur footprint in August 1998, near Sucre, Bolivia. AFP -
A nearly complete Oviraptorid dinosaur embryo, bottom, the outer surface of its egg, left, and the fragments of a dinosaur skull, possibly belonging to a Velociraptor, were all discovered in a nest in Mongolia in November 1994. EPA -
The fossilised skull of a Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur at Sotheby's auction house in New York in October 1997. AFP -
From left, Dr Stephen Godfrey, resident palaeontoligist with the Dinosaur World Tour, Dr Anne Warren from Melbourne Museum and Dr Alex Ritchie from the Australian Museum examine a fossil. Reuters -
The wing of Alcmonavis poeschli, as it was found in a limestone slab in Bavaria, Germany. AFP -
An expert works on the fossilised bones of a dinosaur in Maringa, Brazil, in January 2019. AFP -
The fossilised bones of a theropod dinosaur, Gigantoraptor erlianensis, on display in Beijing in June 2007. AFP -
Scientists Martin Sander, left, and Benjamin Englich examine the footprint of a long-necked dinosaur at an open-air museum in Germany in March 2012. EPA -
Bolivian farmer Primo Rivera stands in an area called Tunasniyoj, which means 'the place of the prickly pear cactus', where he discovered dinosaur footprints in November 2008. Reuters -
Scientific researcher Sanaa El-Sayed works on the 80-million-year-old remains of a plant-eating dinosaur from the Cretaceous period, in Cairo, Egypt, in February 2018. EPA -
Fabien Knoll, an honorary senior research fellow at the University of Manchester, lies next to footprints belonging to the Kayentapus ambrokholohali dinosaur in Lesotho in October 2017. AFP
Stephanie Salinas Garcia of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said the dry weather had made the tracks visible.
"Due to the excessive drought conditions this past summer, the river dried up completely in most locations, allowing for more tracks to be uncovered here in the park," she said.
"Under normal river conditions, these newer tracks are under water and are commonly filled in with sediment, making them buried and not as visible," Ms Garcia said.
Most of the recently revealed tracks were made by Acrocanthosaurus, a bipedal predator that weighed nearly 6.35 tonnes as an adult and stood 4.5 meters tall.
Another dinosaur, Sauroposeidon, also left tracks in the park. The long-necked herbivore was 18 metres tall and weighed 40 tonnes in adulthood.
The inland state park was once on the edge of an ancient ocean, and dinosaurs left footprints in the mud.
However, rain is in the forecast.
"While they will soon be buried again by the rain and the river, Dinosaur Valley State Park will continue to protect these 113 million-year-old tracks not only for present, but future generations," Ms Garcia said.
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An artist's impression of what the Gorgosaurus might have looked like. Getty -
A Gorgosaurus fossil that is almost three metres tall is one of the only full skeletons to be offered for sale since 1997. EPA -
The dinosaur fossil will be auctioned on July 28 and is expected to sell for an estimated between $5 million and $8m. EPA -
The Gorgosaurus roamed the earth approximately 77 million years ago. Reuters -
A typical adult weighed about two tonnes, slightly smaller than its more famous relative, the Tyrannosaurus rex. AP -
Sotheby's described the skeleton as 'one of the most valuable dinosaurs to ever appear on the market.' AP -
A triceratops skull. AFP -
Unlike other countries, the United States does not restrict the sale or export of fossils, meaning the skeleton could end up overseas. AFP -
The sale will mark the first time that Sotheby's has auctioned a full dinosaur skeleton since it sold Sue the T-Rex in 1997 for $8.36m. Reuters -
Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's Global Head of Science and Popular Culture, walks past the fossil. EPA -
Like the T-Rex, the Gorgosaur had tiny front limbs. EPA -
The Gorgosaurus roamed the earth approximately 77 million years ago. AP -
An art handler looks at the Gorgosaurus. AFP -
The skeleton was discovered in the Judith River Formation near Havre, in the US state of Montana in 2018. Reuters
AFP contributed reporting
