Eubrontes
Pronunciation
ewe-bron-tees
Meaning
True thunder
Period
Triassic - Jurassic (251.902 - 201.3mya)
Ichnospecies in Australia
bartholomaii
Ichnospecies meaning
For Dr Alan Bartholomai who first reported this discovery in 1966.
Origin and other locations
First described in the USA in 1845 by Edward B Hitchcock.
Australian use and location
Mt Morgan Qld (Cook et al. 2010); Rhondda Colliery Qld (Staines & Woods 1964).
Description
Three toed theropod footprints, the Eubrontes prints at Rhondda Colliery are nearly 50cm long, indicating a dinosaur around 5–6m long. For the Triassic this is a really big carnivore. Along with the Grallator footprints from this locality, it is the earliest evidence in the whole of Australia for the presence of dinosaurs at about 220mya.
The Eubrontes footprints at Mt Morgan range from 16–40cm long. These prints look similar to Grallator footprints but they are significantly larger. It has been suggested that Grallator footprints were made by subadults of the dinosaur responsible for the Eubrontes footprints (with Grallator as the junior synonym), but this is very difficult to prove.