Over 3,000 dinosaur tracks have been discovered in a gully at Zhucheng, China, according to a recent AFP report.
I haven't seen any journal studies yet on this find, but it certainly sounds like one of the largest collections of dinosaur tracks ever found. This same site, in the eastern province of Shandong, is also said to have the world's largest grouping of dinosaur fossils.
According to Wang Haijun, a senior engineer at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team, the recently discovered footprints are more than 100 million years old and range in size from 4 to 32 inches. Haijun believes tryannosaurs were likely represented in the mix.
I was interested to read that the prints are all facing in the same direction. Where then were all of these dinosaurs going at once?
Haijun thinks the animals were either migrating or running away from a predator. Paleontologists can usually tell how fast animals move based on the tracks, so I hope future analysis of the tracks can shed more light on them.
Zhucheng is known as "dinosaur city," due to this and other dinosaur finds. Plans are already in the works to establish a fossil park in the region.
Each dinosaur species left behind its own unique foot mark. Here are a few examples:
(Ornithopod track found in Yemen; Credit: Nancy Stevens, Ohio University)
(Sauropodomorph track made in northern Arizona; Credit: Winston Seiler, University of Utah)
(Eubrontes track, also made in northern Arizona; Credit: Winston Seiler, University of Utah)
The hunt for dinosaur tracks even occurs near Washington, D.C., as you can see in
this Discovery News video.
Tags: Dinosaurs, Extinct Animals, Paleontology, Prehistoric Animals, Prehistoric Era,
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