It is 385 million years ago, and most of Southern Ireland was part of a gigantic flood-plain near the equator.

Huge floods would periodically deluge the region and in the process would deposit large quantities of silt and sand.

At one stage a four-legged marine amphibian, known as a tetrapod, walked across the silt as it was drying out.

And just as if it had walked over wet concrete, its tracks were preserved.

After further floodings and millions of years of compaction, the footprints turned to stone, and look almost exactly the same as the day they were created.

It was only in the last few thousand years that the tracks once again saw the light of day as a result of persistent erosion by the sea.

It was here in 1993, on the island of Valentia, County Kerry, that an undergraduate geology student first discovered the footprints.

Imprinted on the rock are 150 distinct prints from at least one animal.

Although no fossil skeletons have been found, scientists have been able to visualise what it may have looked like using those tracks.

For example, between some of the prints is a distinct furrow which indicates the animal's torso was low off the ground – comparable in shape perhaps to a large iguana.