When 10-year-old Tegan went for a summer holiday beach stroll with her mum, she had no idea they would actually be walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.
The schoolgirl spotted five enormous footprints that dinosaur experts believe are the mark of a camelotia that was there more than 200 million years ago.
Palaeontologists think the footprints, which are up to 75cm (30in) apart, were made by a huge herbivore from the late triassic period, and now there are efforts to get them verified.
Tegan and mum Claire have been told by the National Museum Wales palaeontology curator that she is “fairly certain they are genuine dinosaur prints”.
“We’ve got five footprints and we’re talking about half-to-three-quarters of a metre between each one,” Cindy Howells told the BBC’s The Dinohunters programme.
“These footprints are so big, it would have to be a type of dinosaur called a sauropodomorpha.”
Tegan’s monster discovery was on the south Wales coast near where her mum used to live.
“It was so cool and exciting,” said Tegan, who had travelled from Pontardawe near Swansea to the Vale of Glamorgan looking for fossils.
“We were just out looking to see what we could find, we didn’t think we’d find anything.
“We found these were big holes that looked like dinosaur footprints, so mum took some pictures, emailed the museum and it was from a long-necked dinosaur.”
Claire emailed Cindy a few days after the find in the red siltstone at Lavernock Point between Cardiff and Barry on a stretch of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast known to be a prehistoric hotspot.
Cindy, the go-to dinosaur expert of 40 years in this part of the UK, said what convinced her they were genuine was the consistent stride pattern.
“If they were random holes, we’d be wary but because we have a left foot, a right foot and then a left and another right… there’s a consistent distance between them,” she said.
“It”s quite a significant find – the buzz you get when someone contacts us with a definite dinosaur find, it’s amazing.”
Claire was chuffed their hunch was right and has invigorated her junior dino hunter daughter.
“It’s hard to comprehend you’re walking on the same beach that hundreds of millions of years ago some massive prehistoric animal was here,” she said.
“You can spent a lifetime looking for dinosaur treasures so for it to happen for Tegan at this age is great.”
What is a camelotia dinosaur?
The latest prehistoric find on this stretch of coast is a print from the sauropod family of dinosaurs – including the brachiosaurus and diplodocus, distinctive by their very long necks, long tails, big body and small head.
Cindy believes the footprint is from a camelotia, that lived across parts of Europe.
Little is known about them – compared what experts know about stegosaurus, triceratops and the mighty T-rex – but it is thought they walked on their front feet and their hind limbs, were herbivorous and from the late triassic period.
“We think these prints were made by a reasonably large, herbivorous dinosaur, added Cindy.
“While we haven’t any bones here, bones of similiar dinosaurs were found on the otherside of the Bristol Channel.”
A camelotia would have stood about 3m (10ft) tall, 4-5m (13-16ft) long and is an early sauropodomorph with a relatively long neck, long tail and walked on two legs but could walk on all four when grazing for food.