How you can find 200-million-year-old dinosaur footprints in Penarth

• Video report by ITV Wales journalist Issa Farfour

A new, free guide has been released showing how and where to find dinosaur footprints on a beach in the Vale of Glamorgan.

The leaflet, produced by the RNLI, describes where the prehistoric prints can be found along the shore of Penarth and provides facts about the animals that left them. It also importantly highlights how to visit them safely, according to the tide times.

The identify of the dinosaur footprints on Penarth beachfront were confirmed last year.

In late 2021, researchers from the Natural History Museum, who also helped create the new guide, concluded that the footprints date from the Triassic period and were left by a dinosaur from the sauropod family. 

Other dinosaur relics have been discovered along the same stretch of south Wales coast, with a fossil found in 2014 nearby at Lavernock beach.

The footprints on Penarth's foreshore are up to 50cm wide and were made more than 200 million years ago.

Professor Paul Barrett, merit researcher at the Natural History Museum, described the significance of the footprints: "These types of tracks are not particularly common worldwide, so we believe this is an interesting addition to our knowledge of Triassic life in the UK.

"The record of Triassic dinosaurs in this country is fairly small, so anything we can find from the period adds to our picture of what was going on at that time." 

The new guides are available for free from the RNLI Penarth shop on Penarth Esplanade, where volunteers are also on hand to give advice about tides and the best times to visit the footprints. 

Laurie Pavelin, chairman of RNLI Penarth, said: "It's great to be able to celebrate this local attraction and the significance it has for our understanding of the prehistoric world, while at the same time making sure that people are able to enjoy this exciting piece of the past safely."