DINOSAUR footprints look pretty durable. They were made in mud, but by the time palaeontologists find them the mud has turned to rock. Inevitably, the footprint wears away over the years, but they still seem substantial enough to withstand natural assault. Or so South African palaeontologist Theagarten Lingham-Soliar thought.
When he found a rare metre-wide footprint of a giant brachiosaur in Zimbabwe, he decided it would be safe to go off and collect the latex he needed to cast a mould of the track. Alas, he hadn’t reckoned with today’s closest approximation to a dinosaur. By the time he got…
