First ever adult T. Rex trackway discovered in North Dakota

Scientists have confirmed the discovery of the first adult T. rex trackway, providing new insights into how the iconic predator moved.

While isolated footprints made by adult T. rex have been found before, this is the first time scientists have reported a sequence of tracks left by the most famous of dinosaurs.

The trackway was found by Kent Hups, a high school science teacher and amateur fossil hunter, on federal land near Marmarth, North Dakota.

The 23-foot-long trackway consists of four three-toed footprints discovered in the Hell Creek Formation. Each footprint is roughly 3 feet long, and researchers estimate they were made about 66.5 million years ago.

In findings published this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the team identified T. rex as the likely track-maker based on the footprints’ exceptional size and narrow shape of the toes, along with the abundance of T. rex fossils found in the area.”Bones tell us an enormous amount about these animals, but footprints capture a moment of behavior. With a trackway, we can actually follow an animal as it moved across the landscape. That is incredibly rare for T. rex,” said Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science who was leading the dig.

The team used high-resolution 3D surface scanning to document each footprint. The trackway records two left and two right footprints, with a stride of approximately 13 feet. Researchers estimate the animal was walking about 3.5 to 4.5 mph, roughly comparable to a brisk human walking pace.”As a teacher, I’m always telling my students that science starts with curiosity, passion and careful observation. I never imagined that could lead me to a discovery like this,” said Hups, who co-authored the paper.

Three of the footprints are expected to be recovered by helicopter this fall and transported to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.