Fossilised bird footprints from thousands of years ago found on Vicentina nature trail

Tracks of fossilised bird footprints from around 187,000 – 43,000 years ago have been found on the southwest coast of Portugal, between Odemira and Vila do Bispo in the Algarve. The discovery was published today in scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews. “Among the various palaeontological records found of coastal birds and others that are rarer to see nowadays around these parts, the tracks of a rook grouse and a huge Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) that will have lived on the Vicenta coast during the last glaciation stand out,” said a statement issued by the UNESCO Naturtejo World Geopark, D. Luiz Institute of the University of Lisbon, University of Coimbra and Polytechnic Institute of Tomar.