Australian discovery of 120m-year-old footprints provides earliest evidence for birds in southern hemisphere

Melissa Lowery on the Victorian beach east of Melbourne where she discovered the ancient bird tracks. Photograph: Museums Victoria

Melissa Lowery was out looking for dinosaur fossils at a spot on Australia’s south coast where she’d found scores before, when she looked down at her feet.

“The shadows fell into these gorgeous little shapes, they were so familiar. I stood staring at these shapes for around 10 minutes,” says Lowery, a volunteer fossil hunter.