Surprisingly preserved reptile tracks and stomach fossils discovered in the Italian Alps last year have helped researchers uncover a tropical lakeside ecosystem that existed before dinosaurs. A woman hiking in the Italian Alps has discovered part of a 280-million-year-old ecosystem containing footprints, plant fossils and even raindrops, researchers have confirmed.

According to The Guardian, Claudia Steffensen stepped on a stone resembling a cement slab while walking behind her husband in the Valtellina Orobie mountain park in Lombardy in 2023. “Then I noticed these strange circular patterns with wavy lines,” Steffensen said in an interview with the newspaper. “I looked closer and realized these were footprints.”

Scientists analyzed the rock and found that the tracks belonged to a prehistoric reptile. This raises the question of what other clues other than Steffensen’s “zero rock” are hidden in these mountain heights.

Later, experts visited the place many times and found evidence of the existence of an ecosystem dating back to the Permian period (299-252 million years ago). The Permian period was characterized by rapid climate warming and ended with an extinction event known as the Great Extinction, which wiped out 90% of Earth’s species.

According to the description’s translation, the footprints of this ecosystem consist of fossilized tracks of reptiles, amphibians, insects, and arthropods, often aligned to form “tracks.” Along with these traces, the researchers also found traces of ancient seeds, leaves and stems, as well as traces of raindrops and waves crashing onto the shores of the prehistoric lake. Evidence of this ancient ecosystem has been found as high as 9,850 feet (3,000 meters) in mountains and valley bottoms, where landslides over the centuries have deposited fossilized rocks.

The ecosystem, anchored by fine-grained sandstone, owes its surprising preservation to its proximity to water in the past. “The footprints were made while these sandstones and shales were still submerged sand and silt on river and lake shores that periodically dried out with the seasons,” said paleontologist Ausonio Ronchi of the University of Pavia in Italy. The statement stated that the fossils were examined. “The summer sun dried out these surfaces, hardening them so much that the return of new water did not erase the traces, but on the contrary covered them with new clay, creating a protective layer.”

Fine grains of this sand and mud preserved the finest details, including claw marks and patterns on the animals’ lower abdomens, according to the statement. Researchers say the tracks come from at least five different animal species, some of which may have grown to the size of modern Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensisIt grows 6.5 to 10 feet (2-3 m) tall.

“Dinosaurs did not exist at that time, but the animals responsible for the largest footprints found here were still of considerable size,” said Cristiano Dal Sasso, a vertebrate paleontologist at Milan’s Natural History Museum and the first expert. The report states that they were contacted regarding the finding.

The fossils provide a window into a fascinating, long-lost world whose inhabitants vanished at the end of the Permian period, but can also tell us about the times we live in now, the researchers said in a statement.

If it were not for climate change, which is rapidly reducing the ice and snow cover in the Alps, most of the prehistoric footprints discovered would remain hidden. “These fossils point to a distant geological period, but the global warming trend is quite similar to today’s,” the researchers said. “The past can teach us a lot about what we risk getting the world into now.”