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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Nicola Davis Science correspondent

UNBELIEVABLE: Scientists launch ai dinotracker app that identifies dinosaur footprints - Caught on Camera

Image of a computer screen showing a graphic outline of a dinosaur footprint
The app’s AI system has been trained with 2,000 unlabelled footprint silhouettes Illustration: see caption

Experts have created an app that uses artificial intelligence to identify dinosaurs from the footprints left behind after they stomped across the land tens of millions of years ago.

“When we find a dinosaur footprint, we try to do the Cinderella thing and find the foot that matches the slipper,” said Prof Steve Brusatte, a co-author of the work, from the University of Edinburgh. “But it’s not so simple, because the shape of a dinosaur footprint depends not only on the shape of the dinosaur’s foot but also the type of sand or mud it was walking through, and the motion of its foot.”

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