America News Agency

The footprints, measuring up to 40 cm in diameter, are arranged in parallel rows, with clear impressions of toes and claws visible in many of them.

The dinosaurs are believed to have been prosauropods—herbivores with long necks, small heads and sharp claws.

Milan-based paleontologist Cristiano Dal Sasso said, “I never imagined I would encounter such a magnificent discovery in the area where I live.”

Last September, a photographer noticed the footprints stretching for hundreds of meters along a vertical mountain wall in Stelvio National Park, northeast of Milan.

During the Triassic period (around 250 to 201 million years ago), the wall was a tidal flat that later became part of the Alpine chain.

Dal Sasso added, “This place was full of dinosaurs; an enormous scientific treasure.”

He also noted that the herds moved in harmony and that there are traces of more complex behaviors, possibly animals gathering in a circle for defensive purposes.

Prosauropods, which could grow up to 10 meters long, walked on two legs, but in some cases handprints were found in front of the footprints, suggesting they may have stopped and leaned on their forelimbs.