Paleontologists have analyzed an exceptionally long sauropod track along the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trail in Colorado, USA. The results suggest that the giant dinosaur that created it may have walked with a limp.
Aerial view of the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trail in Colorado, USA. Image credit: USDA Forest Service.
University of Queensland palaeontologist Anthony Romilio and his colleagues analyzed more than 130 tracks along a 95.5-metre track dating back 150 million years.
“This remained in the late Jurassic period, when long-necked dinosaurs such as Diplodocus And Camarasaurus roamed North America,” Dr. Romilio said.
“This road is unique because it is a complete loop.”
“While we may never know why this dinosaur turned back, the trail retains an extremely rare chance to study how the giant sauropod handled the tight loop turn before resuming its original direction of travel.”
“The scale of the West Gold Hill dinosaur track site required a new approach,” said San Diego Museum of Natural History paleontologist Paul Murphy.
“It was difficult to document these tracks from the ground due to the size of the path.”
“We used drones to capture high-definition footage of the entire course.”
“Using these images, we created a detailed 3D model, which could then be analyzed digitally in the laboratory with millimeter precision.”
The virtual model reconstructed the movement of the sauropod along its entire trajectory.
“It was clear from the beginning that this animal started walking northeast, made a full circle, and then turned back in the same direction,” Dr. Romilio said.
“Within this cycle, we found subtle but consistent clues to his behavior.”
“One of the most striking patterns was the variation in width between the left and right tracks, from quite narrow to distinctly wide.”
“This transition from a narrow to a wide arrangement of steps shows that the width of the trail can naturally change as the dinosaur moves, meaning that short segments of the trail with seemingly the same width may give a false impression of its normal walking style.”
“We also found a small but consistent difference in left and right step length, about 10 cm (4 inches).”
“It's hard to say whether this reflects lameness or simply a preference for one side.”
“There are many long dinosaur tracks around the world where this method can be applied to extract behavioral information that was previously unavailable.”
teams paper was published in the magazine Geomatics.
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Anthony Romilio etc.. 2025. Track by Track: Detecting Sauropod Turning and Lateral Gait at the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Track Site (Upper Jurassic Bluff Sandstone, Colorado). Geomatics 5 (4): 67; doi: 10.3390/geomatics5040067
