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Footprints made by dinosaurs 200 million years ago have been vandalised by amateur fossil hunters.

The tracks were among the best examples anywhere in the world and their precise location has largely remained a secret.

But blundering fossil hunters have damaged the footprints by filling one with plaster of Paris and hammering it in a bid to remove their plaster cast.

Footprints made by dinosaurs 200 million years ago (pictured) have been vandalised by amateur fossil hunters.They filled some with plaster of Paris and tried to smash it out with a breezeblock

They also lit fires on the rock shelf where the tracks have laid undisturbed since Jurassic times.

An investigation has been launched to assess the damage and track down the culprits.

Archaeologist Karl-James Langford, who is the founder of Archaeology Cymru said: 'I was horrified - these are some of the earliest dinosaur prints ever discovered.

'They have been there for 200 million years but have been seriously damaged.

'One print had been filled with Plaster of Paris and somebody had deliberately tried to smash it out with a breeze block.

The footprints are believed to have been left by three-toed meat eating theropod dinosaurs, which walked on their hind legs. Experts have called for areas of special scientific interest to be protected from members of the public, between Barry and Sully (pictured) on the South Wales coast

'Fires are also being started at the site, and rubbish left around. The public must be stopped going to the site now, before it is too late.'

Mr Langford discovered the damage while taking a party of 10 students to the site at Bendrick Rock, between Barry and Sully, on the South Wales coast.

The footprints are believed to have been left by three-toed meat-eating theropod dinosaurs, that walked on their hind legs.

Some wider four-toed footprints are believed to belong to a plant eating dinosaur which would have walked on all fours.

The footprints were made by some of the earliest dinosaurs in the world and it is possible that ancestoral crocodile-like replies walked among them.

At the time, the site lay in the arid north belt of the equator and South Wales was a hot desert.

Deposits from flash floods, including rounded limestone pebbles within the sandstone beds can still be seen at the site, revealing its turbulent past weather.

The rock ledge has been made a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is of 'worldwide importance' because of the dinosaur tracks.

Experts from the National Museum of Wales, the Geologists' Association South Wales Group and the British Institute for Geological Conservation are investigating.

There have been problems at the site before. In 2005, experts discovered that a large area of the
footprint site had been dug up and removed illegally.

Slabs of rock with one or two footprints on them began to appear for sale on the internet and at fossil shops and fairs in the UK and the U.S. Many were recovered and one man was cautioned, according to the Geologists' Association South Wales Group.

The footprints are believed to have been left by three-toed meat-eating theropod dinosaurs, that walked on their hind legs. The creatures are thought to have pre-dated velociraptors (pictured), which were a small theropod

Archaeologist Karl-James Langford (pictured) said: 'I was horrified - these are some of the earliest dinosaur prints ever discovered.'They have been there for 200 million years but have been seriously damaged