A pair of dinosaur footprints uncovered at the Bückeberg Formation in Germany show that they were strolling along together along the beach in what researchers believe could be evidence of a social relationship between the two ancient creatures.
According to CBS News/Live Science reports, the tracks indicate that one of the dinosaurs was large while the other one was small. Based on the distribution of the footprints, the bigger of the two was travelling at a speed of about 3.9 mph (6.3 km/hour), while the smaller one walked at a pace of roughly 6.0 mph (9.7 km/h), occasionally picking up the pace to keep up.
Pernille Venø Troelsen, a biologist from the University of Southern Denmark who presented the findings as part of last month’s XIII Annual Meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists in Poland, also revealed that the dinosaurs appeared to skid in places, most likely because they were having difficulty maintaining their footing on the wet sand.
The footprints belonged to creatures that lived some 142 million years ago, and were excavated from the Bückeberg Formation between 2009 and 2011. Around 50 tracks were found, and while they had previously been subject to a variety of different geological surveys, Troelsen is believed to be the first biologist to conduct an in-depth analysis of the footprints.
More evidence that dinosaurs were social creatures?
Troelsen’s research revealed that the two animals measured about 1.6 meters and 1.1 meters tall at the hip respectively, and that they are likely carnivores from the species Megalosauripus. The little one apparently crossed its legs from time to time during the journey, possibly because it had lost its balance, was struggling with strong winds, or had found something to eat.
Alternatively, this pattern may indicate that it was trying to stay close to the larger one, in which case the footprints “may illustrate two social animals, perhaps a parent and a young,” Troelsen, a student at the university who earned a master’s degree in June, explained in a statement.
While this adds to an increasing number of studies suggesting that several species of dinosaurs were actually social creatures that may have hunted together and raised their offspring after they had been hatched, the author cautions that it cannot be determined with complete accuracy that the two sets of footprints were created at the same time.
“There may be many years apart, in which case it maybe reflects two animals randomly crossing each other’s tracks. 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,” said Troelsen, whose findings have yet to be published by a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
(Image credit: Pernille Venø Troelsen)
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