Fossil footprints in Bolivia reveal dinosaurs' awkward attempts to swim

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Legend erstwhile had it that the huge, three-toed footprints scattered crossed the cardinal highlands of Bolivia came from supernaturally beardown monsters - susceptible of sinking their claws adjacent into coagulated stone.

Then scientists came present successful the 1960s and dispelled children's fears, determining that the unusual footprints successful information belonged to gigantic, two-legged dinosaurs that stomped and splashed implicit 60 cardinal years ago, successful the past waterways of what is present Toro Toro, a colony and fashionable nationalist parkland successful the Bolivian Andes.

Now, a squad of paleontologists, mostly from California's Loma Linda University, person discovered and meticulously documented 16,600 specified footprints near by theropods, the dinosaur radical that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex. Their study, based connected six years of regular tract visits and published past Wednesday successful the peer-reviewed diary PLOS One, reports that this uncovering represents the highest fig of theropod footprints recorded anyplace successful the world.

"There's nary spot successful the satellite wherever you person specified a large abundance of (theropod) footprints," said Roberto Biaggi, a co-author of the survey led by Spanish paleontologist Raúl Esperante. "We person each these satellite records astatine this peculiar site."

Prints grounds dinosaur behaviour — including attempts to swim

The dinosaurs that ruled the world and roamed this portion besides made awkward attempts to aquatics here, according to the study, scratching astatine what was squishy lake-bottom sediment to permission different 1,378 traces.

The longest aquatics trackway studied by the researchers measured implicit 130 meters successful length. "To date, it remains the longest exposed aquatics trackway successful the world," the authors write successful the study.

They pressed their claws into the mud conscionable earlier h2o levels roseate and sealed their tracks, protecting them from centuries of erosion, scientists said.

"The preservation of galore of the tracks is excellent," said Richard Butler, a paleontologist astatine the University of Birmingham who was not progressive successful the research. He said that, to his knowledge, the fig of footprints and trackways recovered successful Toro Toro had nary precedent.

"This is simply a singular model into the lives and behaviors of dinosaurs astatine the extremity of the Cretaceous," Butler added, referring to the play astir 66 cardinal years agone astatine the extremity of which an asteroid interaction abruptly extinguished each dinosaurs and 75% of surviving taxon on with them, according to scientists.

Footprints look preservation threats

Although they've survived for millions of years, quality beingness has threatened these traces. For decades, farmers threshed maize and wheat connected the footprint-covered plateaus. Nearby quarry workers didn't deliberation overmuch of the formations arsenic they blasted stone layers for limestone. And conscionable 2 years ago, researchers said, road crews tunneling done hillsides astir wiped retired a large tract of dinosaur tracks earlier the nationalist parkland intervened.

Such disturbances whitethorn person thing to bash with the area's striking lack of dinosaur bones, teeth and eggs, experts say. For each of the footprints and aquatics traces recovered crossed Bolivia's Toro Toro, determination are virtually nary skeletal remains of the benignant that litter the peaks and valleys of Argentine Patagonia and Campanha successful Brazil.

But the deficiency of bones could person earthy causes, too. The squad said the quantity and signifier of tracks - and the information they were each recovered successful the aforesaid sediment furniture - suggest that dinosaurs didn't settee successful what is present Bolivia arsenic overmuch arsenic trudge on an past coastal superhighway stretching from confederate Peru into northwest Argentina.

The scope successful footprint sizes indicated that elephantine creatures astir 10 meters (33 feet) gangly moved successful a herd with tiny theropods the size of a chicken, 32 centimeters (1 foot) gangly astatine the hip.

In presenting a snapshot of mundane behaviour footprints "reveal what skeletons cannot," said Anthony Romilio, a paleontologist astatine the University of Queensland successful Australia who besides did not enactment successful the study. Just from footprints, researchers tin archer erstwhile dinosaurs strolled oregon sped up, stopped oregon turned around.

It's not wide wherefore truthful galore dinosaurs roamed the site

But the crushed they flocked successful droves to this wind-swept plateau remains a mystery.

"It whitethorn person been that they were each regular visitors to a large, ancient, freshwater lake, frequenting its expansive muddy shoreline," offered Romilio.

Biaggi suggested that they were "running distant from thing oregon searching for determination to settle."

What's definite is that probe into this treasure trove of a dinosaur tracksite volition continue.

"I fishy that this volition support going implicit the years and galore much footprints volition beryllium recovered close determination astatine the edges of what's already uncovered," Biaggi said.

Recent dinosaur footprint discoveries

Researchers person unearthed different dinosaur footprints recently.

In March, scientists successful England observe a 650 ft way of dinosaur footprints made 160 cardinal years agone by monolithic sauropod dinosaurs.

In January, British researchers unearthed immoderate 200 dinosaur footprints dating backmost 166 cardinal years successful a find believed to beryllium biggest successful the United Kingdom. "This is 1 of the astir awesome way sites I've ever seen, successful presumption of scale, successful presumption of the size of the tracks," said Prof Kirsty Edgar, a micropaleontologist from the University of Birmingham, told BBC News. "You tin measurement backmost successful clip and get an thought of what it would person been like, these monolithic creatures conscionable roaming around, going astir their ain business."

That find was announced conscionable a fewer months aft a squad of paleontologists found matching dinosaur footprints on what are present 2 antithetic continents, separated by thousands of miles of ocean.

In October 2023, engineers successful the U.K. made a "dramatic discovery" of dinosaur footprints that experts judge could beryllium from a mantellisaurus, a benignant of dinosaur that had conscionable 3 toes connected each ft and traveled connected its hind legs.

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