Four-year-old Lily Wilder used to be afraid of dinosaurs — until she discovered one of their 200-million-year-old footprints in a fossilized rock at the beach.
Now the preschooler carries a toy Tyrannosaurus rex everywhere she goes as she waits for the moment she can see her discovery in a museum, alongside a plaque with her name on it.
“We just went for a little walk on the beach, really not thinking anything special was going to happen, and then Lily sees the fossil and said, ‘Daddy, look at this,'” Lily’s father, Richard Wilder, told As It Happens host Carol Off. “It was almost too good to be true, how realistic it was. It was almost like someone had etched into the rock.”
The family spotted the fossil while out for a walk on Bendricks Bay in south Wales. The beach is known for its dinosaur footprints, though the Wilders didn’t know that. Paleontologists say Lily’s fossil is one of the best specimens ever discovered there.
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