Monumento Natural das Pegadas de Dinossáurios

The Ourém/Torres Novas Dinosaur Footprints Natural Monument lies in the Serra de Aire, near the village of Bairro, on the boundary between the municipalities of Ourém and Torres Novas. The former Pedreira do Galinha quarry revealed a limestone slab where hundreds of footprints of sauropod dinosaurs, large four-legged herbivores from the Jurassic, have been preserved. The site was classified in 1996, by Regulatory Decree no. 12/96, with the aim of conserving the Cabeço dos Casanhos ichnofossil deposit, promoting its scientific study and communicating its environmental and palaeoenvironmental value. On the rocky surface, the footprints are arranged in around twenty trackways; the longest reach 142 and 147 metres, creating a concrete reading of these animals’ movement. The interpretive route allows visitors to observe elliptical marks from the feet and smaller impressions from the hands, inscribed in the limestone like a silent sequence of their steps.