Dino Printing

Dinosaur footprints in Morija, Lesotho

200 million years ago Lesotho, like much of the world, was home to dinosaurs. There is even a dinosaur named after Lesotho: the Lesothosaurus. This dinosaur was a small, agile, herbivore, traveled on two legs, and would have been about thigh high on an adult human.

Thanks to a geography that includes a lot of visible rock formations, fossilized footprints are scattered throughout the country today.

Over the last six months, I have finally had the opportunity to visit two of these sites.

Morija Prints

Somewhere up there are some dinosaur footprints...

The first of these adventures was in Morija, a village in Maseru district. Along with three fellow PCVs, we set out early on a Saturday morning in April, mostly to beat the sunny heat. From my friends' house, it was a vertical climb to reach the prints. As it was late autumn, we were under constant attack by my least favorite thing about Lesotho--a weed called Blackjack that clings to clothing.







The dinosaur prints in Morija are on the vertical surface of a rocky outcropping two-thirds of the way up the mountain overlooking the village. It makes for some hard but rewarding work to get to them. Thankfully, my friends knew the trail, because it would be easy to take a wrong turn and miss them completely!

The climb would be worth the view, but add in dino footprints and it is extra worth it!

Oh, here they are!

This sign enticed me for years before
I finally had the chance to stop
and see these footprints.

Subeng River Prints
My second dinosaur print experience happened in October. Out in the field for work, we had some spare time before a meeting and the prints are conveniently just off of the road we traveled. I had passed the sign for these prints every time I traveled to or from my original site in Botha Bothe and regretted not ever stopping to check out the prints.

Our new frog-prince!

As none of the four of us had ever visited these prints, we had a harder time spotting them. A friendly older man had pointed us in the direction of the riverbed, which we wandered just long enough to find ourselves a giant painted frog.

As we wandered back up towards the truck, a nice young man showed us the dinosaur footprints that we were standing on top of! I cannot believe these continue to remain in the mostly dry riverbed as every rain tries to erode them.

The Lesothosaurus may be much shorter than me, but our feet are similar in size!

My hands, however, are much smaller than this footprint!

The Next Big Dino Adventure?
The Lesothosaurus was discovered in the late 1970s. Last month, another dinosaur species was discovered in Lesotho! It is believed that this dinosaur was large (up to nine meters tall!) and carnivorous. These new footprints were confirmed by researchers and are less than an hour from my home. Unfortunately, the news reports only allude to the general location of this massive new footprint, so finding it might be impossible at the moment.

Walking up and down the riverbed in search of footprints makes for fun times snapping selfies!