Actually, the heading of this post is probably erroneous, because the small to mid-sized theropods were almost certainly not naked, but dressed up in their fancy "dino fuzz". However, there's no question about it that they were the first ones to occupy these wonderful beaches near Porec, around 100 million years ago (late Albian, Early Cretaceous). Fact is that the countless dinosaur tracks "litter" the long beach of the large Istrian naturist resort Solaris.
To take these photographs without being surrounded by the naked people, I had to visit the site in December.
See one of my previous posts: "Small sauropod footprints at the beach" for more information.
In the photograph, you can see the "messy dinosaurs" again. There are numerous footprints in this image alone, in various states of preservation. I tried to outline the best ones. The largest theropod prints measure some 28-29 cm in length. So, I presume the animal was up to 4 meters long.
In the centre, there is a brown outline of what seems to be a small ornithopod. I think this print is not what it seems (see my post about the tracks on Kamenjak). In fact, this is just the mid section of the theropod track that got preserved in the "paleo-sand". Of course, the tracks were left in a fine wet sand, which is now a hard carbonate rock.
Happy International Labour Day!
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