In March 2006, a series of dinosaur footprints were found at Devon Downs in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. The footprints are believed to be between 127 and 140 million years old, making them the oldest dinosaur footprints ever found in Australia. The prints were preserved in a sandstone formation that was once part of a riverbed.
The footprints were found by a team of paleontologists from the University of Western Australia. The team was led by Dr. Steve Salisbury, who said that the discovery was "a major breakthrough." He said that the footprints provide evidence that dinosaurs lived in Australia much earlier than previously thought.
The footprints are thought to have been made by a variety of dinosaurs, including sauropods, theropods, and ornithischia. Sauropods were large, plant-eating dinosaurs that included the famous Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus. Theropods were meat-eating dinosaurs that included the famous Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. Ornithischia were a group of herbivorous dinosaurs that included the famous Triceratops and Stegosaurus.
The discovery of the Devon Downs footprints is significant because it provides new evidence about the evolution of dinosaurs. The footprints suggest that dinosaurs diversified much earlier than previously thought, and that they were present in Australia at a time when the continent was much closer to the South Pole.