History

Baby Dinosaur Prints Found Within the City

The first prints of Stegosaurus toddlers

By Stefan Anitei, Science Editor

28th of May 2007, 08:14 GMT

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The small, three-toed track is a baby stegosaurus hindpaw. Above the center toe of the hindtrack is the impression of the thumb

A team at the Morrison Natural History Museum has found two rare hatchling dinosaur footprints in the foothills west of Denver, close to the town of Morrison, within sight of the skyscrapers of downtown Denver. They attributed the prints to Stegosaurus offspring.

"The tracks are so crisply preserved that I can imagine the sound of tiny feet splashing up water when the baby dinosaurs came to this ancient river to drink and cool down. I still can't get over just how small these footprints are." remarks Museum Director Matthew Mossbrucker, the tracks' discoverer.

Not very far away, the first known Stegosaurus bones were unearthed in 1877 and this peculiar back-plated primitive plant-eating Jurassic beast, estimated to have been the size of an elephant (about 6 tons) turned into Colorado's state fossil. As the Stegosaurus feet were relatively small, their prints are hard to find and that's why little is known about their biology (growth rate, longevity and behavior). The toddler footprints could help.

"The fossil footprints represent the first hatchling Stegosaurus footprints ever found. Finding such imprints in the vicinity of the earlier discovered bones is something that, as a rule, never happens", said leading paleontologist Dr. Robert T. Bakker, the museum's curator of paleontology.

"It's incredibly rare," Mossbrucker said.

The tracks are about the size of a fifty-cent coin, pointing that hatchling Stegosaurus could have been the size of newborn human baby. Others disagree with the designation of the fossil prints.

"There were a lot of other dinosaurs running around at that time, certainly with these with these three toes and small, wide feet. It could be one of those other types. Let's just say the verdict is still out," said Ken Carpenter, a curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who has not seen the tracks in person.

Some do not think that the discovery comes with much scientific data.

"At the end of the day, I wouldn't call it a huge scientific discovery because we know to expect tracks. It's not adding a huge amount of information." said Kirk Johnson, vice president of research at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

"Most discoveries of dinosaur fossils and tracks are in rural or remote areaS. Paleontologists often ignore sites like Morrison, a little more than 10 miles from Denver," signaled Mossbrucker.

"I think because these sites are so close to the Denver metro area, they often get overlooked for more appealing, exotic sites."

TAGS:

dinosaur | print | Stegosaurus

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