Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science
No Result
View All Result
Home Science Biology

Did dinosaurs enjoy walking on the beach?

Paleontologists have discovered a set of dinosaur footprints that seem to indicate social behavior in carnivorous dinosaurs. The footprints, found in northern Germany, belonged to two dinosaurs, one larger, and one smaller.

Dragos Mitrica by Dragos Mitrica
August 17, 2015
in Biology, Geology, News
Reading Time: 2 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterSubmit to Reddit

Paleontologists have discovered a set of dinosaur footprints that seem to indicate social behavior in carnivorous dinosaurs. The footprints, found in northern Germany, belonged to two dinosaurs, one larger, and one smaller.

A footprint, thought to belong to a species of megalosauripus, a type of meat-eating theropod dinosaur. The false color scale shows show far the footprint goes down. Pernille Venø Troelsen

 

Some 142 million years ago, a couple of dinosaurs were strolling in what later became the coast of Germany. The prints suggest they were in no rush, walking at about 3.9 mph (6.3 km/hour) for the large one and about 6 mph (9.7 km/h) for the little one. At some points, the smaller one seemed to be trotting, probably trying to keep up.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The footprints show that the dinosaurs skid here and there as well,” says study researcher, Pernille Troelsen, having done his masters in biology from the University of Southern Denmark in June this year.

Troelsen went on to explain that the animals were virtually walking on the beach at unusually slow paces. Her experience and background is slightly different from that of most paleontologists – she’s a biologist, and can contribute with different knowledge.

“As a biologist, I can contribute with knowledge about behavior of the individual animals,” Troelsen said in a statement.

We don’t know for sure what kind of dinosaurs these were, but we know something about their size. They were theropods, and the large dinosaur’s feet measured an average of 13.5 by 14.3 inches (34.4 by 36.4 centimeters). The small one’s measured an average of 9.3 by 9.3 inches (23.5 by 23.5 cm), or about a U.S. man’s size 6 shoe. But we know even more about them: the animals stood about 5.2 feet (1.6 meters) and 3.6 feet (1.1 m) at hip height respectively, and were almost certainly meat eaters. They were comparable in size (and probably behavior) to the Velociraptor – agile hunters.

Sorry to interrupt, but you should really...

...Join the ZME newsletter for amazing science news, features, and exclusive scoops. More than 40,000 subscribers can't be wrong.

   

But social behavior in predator dinosaurs is rarely documented, and is still a matter of debate. The fact that these two were so comfortable with each other to slowly walk on the beach might indicate that they were parent and offspring, but it may have also been common in the day.

ADVERTISEMENT

“They may be many years apart, in which case it maybe reflects two animals randomly crossing each other’s tracks,” Troelsen said. “We can also see that a duckbill dinosaur (Iguanodon) has crossed their tracks at one time or another, so there has been some traffic in the area.”

 

ShareTweetShare
Dragos Mitrica

Dragos Mitrica

Dragos has been working in geology for six years, and loving every minute of it. Now, his more recent focus is on paleoclimate and climatic evolution, though in his spare time, he also dedicates a lot of time to chaos theory and complex systems.

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • More
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Our stance on climate change
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2019 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.