Dinosaur Footprints in Wales: What Bendricks Bay Reveals

Wales's best-known place for seeing dinosaur footprints is Bendricks Bay, near Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. The marks sit in Triassic rock about 220 million years old. They are trace fossils, meaning evidence of animals moving across soft ground rather than fossilised bones.

Museum Wales calls the bay the best place in Wales to look for the tracks. They can be surprisingly subtle, which is why low tide, low sunlight and rain-filled hollows can make such a difference.

What is preserved at Bendricks Bay?

The flat red rock shelves preserve footprints and short trackways made when this part of south Wales looked very different. Soft sediment took the shape of a foot, then later hardened into rock. The visible hollow is therefore a record of movement through a landscape, not a cast of the whole dinosaur.

Museum Wales lists four footprint forms at the site: Anchisauripus, Eosauropus, Grallator and Evazoum. These are trace-fossil names based on the prints. They do not identify an exact dinosaur species with the certainty that a complete skeleton might.

What do dinosaur footprints in Wales show?

The prints show that different early dinosaurs crossed the area during the Late Triassic. Some tracks are three-toed and relatively narrow, while others are broader. Their size, spacing and direction can help palaeontologists compare how animals stood and moved.

That still leaves room for uncertainty. A footprint may be worn, partly covered or distorted before the sediment hardens. Scientists compare repeated shapes and trackways instead of treating every hollow as a perfect stamp.

The footprint found by Lily Wilder

In January 2021, four-year-old Lily Wilder noticed a footprint about 10 centimetres long while walking at the bay. Museum Wales later identified the print as Evazoum and arranged for it to enter the national collection after the necessary permission was secured.

The discovery mattered because a small, sharp pair of eyes found something easy to walk past. It also showed why a protected fossil should be recorded and reported rather than pulled from the rock by an enthusiastic visitor.

How to look without damaging the site

• Check the tide and weather before setting out. The track-bearing shelves are a coastal environment.
• Look at low tide, especially when low sunlight or recent rain makes shallow hollows easier to see.
• Do not hammer, cut, cast, collect or try to lift a footprint.
• Photograph a possible find with an object for scale and note its location.
• Report a promising discovery to Museum Wales or the appropriate geological conservation body.

Bendricks Bay is protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Museum Wales warns that hammering or collecting can lead to a substantial fine. The rule protects both famous tracks and marks that have not yet been studied.

Why the footprints are easy to miss

Photographs often use side-light, water or close framing to reveal the outline. On the shore, the same print may look like a shallow, rounded depression among many natural textures. Go for the geology and coast as well as the promise of a dramatic footprint.

A single photograph is rarely enough to identify a new track confidently. Useful records show the mark from directly above and from the side, include a scale, and preserve the surrounding rock rather than cropping away all context. Location details should be passed privately to the museum or conservation body when a find may be vulnerable.

For a wider coastal plan, see the Wales Coast Path beginner guide. Our explanation of garreg las and Welsh rock vocabulary offers a separate language-led look at stone and place.

Are these the only dinosaur finds in Wales?

No. Museum Wales records dinosaur bones and footprints from several south Wales discoveries, including early finds near Porthcawl and more recent fossils from the Vale of Glamorgan coast. Bendricks Bay is special because tracks remain visible in the landscape, but it belongs to a broader Welsh fossil story.

The first recognised Welsh dinosaur footprints were reported in 1879. That long history also explains why specimens held by a museum matter: researchers can revisit them when new comparison methods or discoveries change what a trace may reveal.

The short answer

Bendricks Bay preserves several kinds of dinosaur footprint in roughly 220-million-year-old rock. They prove dinosaurs moved through what is now south Wales, but the shapes do not provide a perfect species label. Visit at low tide, look carefully and leave every trace exactly where it is.