TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas – As cleanup continues in the Hill Country, volunteers in Travis County uncovered something prehistoric while clearing debris.
They found dinosaur tracks dating back about 115 million years, according to paleontologist Matthew Brown.
The discovery was made on private property at Big Sandy Creek.
Brown, a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said at least 15 individual footprints were found, each measuring about 18 to 20 inches.
“We saw the tracks and also saw some places where new tracks have been exposed due to floodwaters scouring the landscape,” Brown said.
Another paleontologist, Thomas Adams, believes he knows which dinosaur left the tracks.
“The most likely candidate, based on the size of those tracks and what we know about the dinosaurs here, is something like Acrocanthosaurus,” Adams said.
An Acrocanthosaurus is a three-toed carnivorous dinosaur. Its fossils can be found on display at the San Antonio Witte Museum.
The tracks aren’t a new discovery. Adams said a University of Texas student found them in the 1980s.
“They were probably covered up, and the flooding has re-exposed them, giving us another opportunity to check them out and document them,” Adams said.
Dinosaur tracks have been found in Central Texas for more than 100 years.
Since the floods, Brown said he has received dozens of reports of other tracks being found throughout Central Texas.
Read also on KSAT.com: