A chance encounter by a wildlife photographer stalking deer in the Italian Alps has led to the discovery of thousands of dinosaur footprints, forming one of the largest and most significant trackway collections ever found in Europe. The footprints, some measuring up to 40 centimetres across and preserving detailed impressions of toes and claws, are etched into a near-vertical rock face in a remote, snowbound area of Stelvio National Park in Lombardy.
The discovery has astonished scientists and regional officials alike, both for its scale and its remarkable state of preservation. Attilio Fontana, president of the Lombardy region, said the site ranks among the most extensive dinosaur footprint collections in the world. The prints stretch for hundreds of metres across rock that now rises steeply at an altitude of around 2,000 metres, far from established trails and accessible only with the help of drones.
Experts believe the tracks were left around 210 million years ago during the Late Triassic period, when the Alpine region bore little resemblance to its present form. At the time, it was a tropical environment covered in soft, calcareous mud. Dinosaurs walked across the surface, leaving deep impressions that were later buried by sediment, shielding them from erosion before the mud hardened into rock.
The footprints are thought to belong to prosauropods, large herbivorous dinosaurs that could reach ten metres in length, weigh up to four tonnes and were characterised by long necks and relatively small heads. According to palaeontologists, these animals likely moved in groups, a theory strongly supported by the newly discovered trackways.
Fabio Massimo Petti, an ichnologist at the Muse science museum in Trento, said the fine-grained mud preserved extraordinary anatomical detail. He noted that the plasticity of the original surface allowed impressions of individual toes and even claw marks to survive the passage of geological time, offering a rare and intimate glimpse into dinosaur locomotion.
As the Alps gradually formed, tectonic forces compressed and tilted the rock layers, pushing the ancient surface into a near-vertical orientation. What was once a muddy plain at sea level is now a towering wall of stone, its prehistoric secrets hidden in plain sight for millions of years. The dramatic angle of the rock face has made traditional excavation impossible, forcing researchers to rely on aerial imaging and remote analysis.
Beyond the sheer number of footprints, scientists are particularly excited by what the site reveals about dinosaur behaviour. Cristiano Dal Sasso, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in Milan, said the parallel trackways show clear evidence of animals moving together in synchrony, reinforcing the idea that these dinosaurs travelled in organised herds. In some areas, the tracks appear to converge, forming circular patterns that may indicate defensive group behaviour or social interaction.
The discovery comes as the region prepares to host the 2026 Winter Olympics, adding an unexpected prehistoric dimension to an area already in the global spotlight. Italy’s culture ministry described the find as a symbolic meeting of past and present, suggesting that the ancient tracks offer a reminder of the deep history embedded in landscapes now shaped by modern sport and tourism.
For researchers, the site represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to study dinosaur life not through bones, but through movement frozen in stone. Each footprint, pressed into mud by a living animal more than 200 million years ago, adds to a growing picture of how dinosaurs lived, travelled and survived together long before the Alps themselves existed.
