Lost world with a 280-million-year-old ecosystem is discovered by hiker in the Italian Alps
Claudia Steffensen and her husband were trekking along a trail in the Valtellina Orobie Mountains Park in Lombardy in 2023 when she spotted a light gray rock covered in 'strange designs.'
The exceptional thing was the altitude - these relics were found at very high levels and were very well preserved. This is an area subjected to landslides, so there were also rock detachments that brought to light these fossils.
Steffensen sent photos to a research team who determined the footprints belonged to a prehistoric reptile that roamed the Earth during the Permian period, the age immediately before dinosaurs.
Further investigation of the region led paleontologists to hundreds of other fossilized footprints left behind by at least five species of ancient reptiles, amphibians and insects.
