INCREDIBLE MATCHING DINOSAUR TRACKS CONNECTS SOUTH AMERICA AND AFRICA

Our seven continents were compressed into a single supercontinent, or Pangea, millions of years ago. Pangea eventually broke up into landmasses that fit together once, despite being divided by oceans. Primarily, South America and Africa are jigsaw pieces that fit together, evoking memories of their former formation as the post-Pangea continent Gondwana. Beyond the map, there is evidence of this historical relationship between the landmasses.

Paleontologist Louis Jacobs of Southern Methodist University led a recent study that found dinosaur tracks in Brazil and Cameroon that matched, left by a single, long-extinct group of animals.

The New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science published a study in which the researchers recorded 260 dinosaur footprints from the two nations. They mainly belong to theropod dinosaurs and are remarkably similar. The Tyrannosaurus rex is one of these three-toed dinosaurs. They also mentioned the existence of ornithischians and sauropods. 

Trace fossils, as the footprints are called, are found in rock that formed from sandy silt in ancient rivers. The dinosaur prints that roamed free were divided when continental drift forced the tectonic plates that supported the continents apart.

According to a statement from Jacobs, "the elbow of northeastern Brazil nestled against what is now the coast of Cameroon along the Gulf of Guinea was one of the youngest and narrowest geological connections between Africa and South America." Animals on either side of the connection could be able to travel across it because the two continents were connected along that small section. We discovered that these footprints were similar in age. They were comparable in terms of their plate tectonic and geological settings. They are nearly identical in terms of shape.