The tracks in the red sandstone told a story. They showed that a pair of Sauropods, giant dinosaurs with long necks, had walked here side by side more than 80 million years ago. “Think of them interacting like a family of elephants,” said Mainbayar Buuvei, squatting low to the ground to trace the outline of a footprint with his finger.
The footprints were deep — more like moulds made by the weight of the dinosaurs pressing into the soft, muddy ground. Those impressions were then filled with leaves and dirt, which had hardened to create a natural cast of the dinosaur’s foot. “You can see the skin and a nail,” said Buuvei, showing a claw on the side of the footprint.
It was late afternoon in August at the Khongil site, in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, where the stony ground yielded to an outcrop of craggy red sandstone holding the fossils and footprints. The Gobi is one of the world’s richest paleontological regions. Some of the most well-known dinosaurs were discovered here: the speedy Velociraptors of Jurassic Park fame and the strange humpbacked Deinocheirus with freakishly huge claws.