Fantastic Footprints from Alaska

Published: 14th Jul 2014

An incredible dinosaur track site with perfectly preserved dinosaur footprints has been discovered in Denali National Park, Alaska. The footprints belong to herds of duck-billed dinosaurs known as hadrosaurs, which lived in the Late Cretaceous period between 100 and 66 million years ago.

The hadrosaurs roamed the area in large family groups, travelling across the rugged terrain together.  The tracks show they travelled in large groups with babies travelling alongside much larger adults. Some of the footprints are so detailed that they reveal the dinosaurs’ skin texture. Amazingly it is even possible to see tracks of bugs and worms can be seen.

‘Without question, Denali is one of the best dinosaur footprint localities in the world, but what we found that last day was incredible – so many tracks, so big, and so well preserved,’ said Dr Fiorillo leader of the expedition.

The Hadrosaurid dinosaurs are affectionately known as the ‘cows of the Cretaceous,’ and it would appear that they experienced a period of rapid growth in their life history.

‘This is one of the greatest dinosaur tracksites in the world in terms of size, number, and quality.  We could see how hadrosaurs walked, ran, or slipped on muddy surface, said another of the palaeontologists.

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