In Yongjing County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, staff from the Dinosaur Museum of the Yellow River Three Gorges Scenic Area Management Committee recently discovered a set of five small dinosaur footprint fossils. According to preliminary expert judgment, this group of fossils is a miniature dinosaur footprint fossil from the Cretaceous period, which is one of the smallest dinosaur footprint fossils discovered in the world. Affected by the recent continuous precipitation, staff of the Dinosaur Museum discovered a set of five dinosaur footprint fossils on the surface of a peeling rock mass in the Linxia Global Geopark, with each footprint measuring approximately one to three centimeters in length. Associate Professor Xing Lida from China University of Geosciences (Beijing), who has been engaged in dinosaur research for a long time, preliminarily determined after field investigation that this group of fossils is a small dinosaur footprint fossil from the early Cretaceous period, which is one of the smallest dinosaur footprint fossils discovered in the world. It is understood that tiny dinosaur footprints fossils from the Cretaceous period were first discovered in the Sichuan Basin of China, and later discovered in Shandong Province and South Korea. Xing Lida said, "The new discovery in Linxia is likely to indicate a larger distribution of such footprints during the same period, which is of great significance for studying the biostratigraphy, geological age, and dinosaur diversity of these areas." Xing Lida introduced that this is the first discovery of micro sized dinosaur footprint fossils in northwest China. The newly discovered micro sized dinosaur footprints have obvious ripple structures on the rock surface, indicating that the trace makers of micro sized dinosaur footprints were active near the water and were found together with many water bird footprint fossils. This combination is consistent with discoveries in other regions. This new discovery is highly valuable in both scientific research and popular science. Through these fossils, we can understand the miniaturization of dinosaurs from another dimension. Dinosaur miniaturization is an essential element in the evolution of dinosaurs into birds and is a very important evolutionary event. Since the late 1990s, more than 2000 dinosaur footprint fossils from Liujiaxia have been discovered in Yongjing County, Linxia Prefecture. The footprint fossil group is highly differentiated, well preserved, and appears in multiple layers. (New Society)