Strolling along the beach during summer vacation is a very calming experience, which most people enjoy. Seeing little kids pretending to be pirates looking for riches isn’t an unusual sight when you’re watching the waves and admiring the view. That is, unless they actually find treasure.

Four-year-old Lily Wilder discovered a fossilized dinosaur footprint while walking with her father at Bendricks Bay, South Wales. Bendricks Bay is well known for its fossilized footprints and layers of sediment deposits. According to Live Science, Cindy Howell, National Museum of Wales Palaeontology curator, said that the footprint is the best preserved footprint in the UK. The footprint has kept lots of details intact, so the claws, muscles, and pads are visible.The print is a grallator print, meaning a dinosaur with three toes created it. Although it is close to impossible to know which exact dinosaur is responsible for this print, the dinosaur was estimated to be 30 inches tall and 8.2 feet long. The National Museum of Wales states that there are similar footprints in the US that were made by the Coelophysis. 

According to NBC news, the fossil was on a low rock, just the right size for a child to spot it. Lily was excited when she noticed it, but she didn’t understand what an amazing item she had just discovered. The footprint was taken to the National Museum of Wales with permission from Natural Resources Wales, the government-sponsored body that regulates conservation and environmental issues. 

The National Museum of Wales tells us that this footprint represents a very important early point in evolution, when dinosaur groups were evolving differently. This amazing preservation will greatly help scientists uncover more about these extinct dinosaur species. And when the footprint goes on display at the museum, Lily’s name will be beside it.