Dr. Benjamin Bomfleur on finding a reptile footprint in the Antarctic

Around three years ago, researchers on an Antarctic expedition, including Münster University palaeobotanist Dr. Benjamin Bomfleur , made an incredible discovery in northern Victoria Land. They found the 200 million-year-old footprint of an extinct reptile. The researchers have now published their findings from the hand-sized footprint in the journal "Polar Research". Norbert Robers spoke about the find with Benjamin Bomfleur from Münster University's Institute of Geology and Palaeontology. At that time, in 2015/16, were you actively looking for tracks because you suspected you might find some - or was it literally entirely unexpected? The expedition was undertaken by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), and included Dr. Thomas Mörs from Stockholm and myself as a "two-man palaeontology team". The composition and the age of the rock layers in the remote study area where we had our camp were virtually unknown. This meant that we had only a vague idea of what to expect. Naturally, though, we set out into the field with a slight hope that we might discover dinosaur fossils in this region of the Transantarctic Mountains. When the footprint was revealed, however, we were still astonished. Ironically, it was the Italian tectonics specialist, Dr. Laura Crispini from Genova, who made the actual discovery -the one in our geology team who is least involved in studying fossils. The fossil footprint is around 200 million years old. How would you assess the discovery from a scientific point of view?