Dino footprints discovered in school entrance hall

Why did the dinosaur cross the river? To get to this Australian school, of course!

OK, ignore our rubbish dinosaur joke, but check out this story!

A boulder containing loads of dinosaur fossils has been sitting in the entrance hall of a school in Queensland, Australia for over 20 years.

It wasn't until members of the local community brought it to the attention of Dr Anthony Romilio at the University of Queensland Dinosaur Lab, that they realised the significance of the rock.

He was able to detect 66 fossilised footprints from 47 individual dinosaurs on the small slab of rock.

This made it one of Australia's biggest collections of dinosaur prints found in one spot.

Dr Romilio says the pattern of the footprints suggests the creatures, believed to be called Anomoepus scambus, were crossing or travelling up or down a shallow river bed.

The boulder was first discovered at the Callide mine, not far from the school, in 2002.

It was given to the Biloela State High School by a geologist, Wes Nichols, whose wife was a teacher there at the time.

The Banana shire mayor, Nev Ferrier, said the discovery was a reminder of how rich and unique the local landscape was.

"This is huge – not just for Biloela but for the whole country," he said. "Who would have thought that a simple rock sitting in the school foyer for years would turn out to be one of Australia's most important fossil finds? It just goes to show that our region is full of surprises."