Sauropod dinosaurs were different. They were large, long, and particularly avid plant eaters. But they were definitely not agile. The most massive sauropods, weighing around 80 tons, were slow and steady curvers and much more suited to gently twisting routes. Of course, than strongly curved.
However, a new analysis of fossilized footprints has found evidence that comes closest to sauropod agility. Published in GeomaticsThe analysis recreates the movement of a single sauropod along a long, winding path approximately 150 million years ago. The trail is about 313 feet long and contains about 130 tracks, making it the largest and narrowest sauropod trail ever recorded, according to the authors.
“This trail is unique because it is a complete loop,” said Anthony Romilio, study author and paleontologist at the University of Queensland, according to press release. “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.”
Read more: A dinosaur highway following sauropod tracks provides insight into life in the Middle Jurassic
A sharp turn for a lumbering sauropod
About 150 million years ago more 20 species of sauropods trampled throughout North America, including such symbols as the 100-foot Diplodocus and 80 feet long Apatosaurus. Although none of these extreme herbivores were particularly agile, a lone sauropod from the period left tracks after a particularly sharp turn it made in what is now the West Gold Hill Dinosaur Trail in Ouray County, Colorado.
The dinosaur's turn, stored in sediment all this time, is still frozen in stone. But only a small portion of the track has been carefully documented and described by scientists, leaving a number of questions about the dinosaur's movement and agility unanswered.
“It has been difficult to document these tracks from the ground,” said Paul Murphy, another study author and a paleontologist at the San Diego Museum of Natural History, “due to the size of the trail,” according to the press release.
To solve this problem, researchers turned to drones that capture images from the air. images of the path, and then turning the images into a high-resolution virtual model. This model allowed them to trace the complete step sequence of sauropods, helping to explain how these bulky creatures excited across the North American landscape.
Read more: Theropod dinosaurs met to dance, mate and nest in Colorado about 100 million years ago
Sauropod stride analysis
Plane views of more than 130 fossils, shown as (A) a stitched photographic model and (B) as a false-color height map, where elevation changes highlight the tracks by their depth. The arrows indicate the dinosaur's path as it walked through the area.
(Image courtesy of Dr. Anthony Romilio)
Specifically, the model showed that the sauropod was moving northeast when it decided to turn west and then south in a counterclockwise loop. “It was clear from the beginning that this animal started walking northeast, made a full circle, and then ended up facing the same direction again,” Romilio said in a news release.
Not only that, but the researchers also noticed slight changes in the sauropods' bodies. steps along the loop – a characteristic of sauropod stride that appears only on longer paths.
“One of the most striking patterns was the change in width between the left and right tracks, from quite narrow to distinctly wide,” Romilio added in a press release. “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.”
Surprisingly, the study authors also noted that the sauropod's stride length was approximately 4 inches longer on one side than the other, suggesting that herbivore he may have walked with a limp, or at least had a strong preference for some of his legs.
Taken together, the study authors emphasize that their imaging and modeling techniques can help analyze other tracks, even those that weren't made by a violently spinning, limping sauropod.
“There are many long dinosaur tracks around the world where this method can be used to extract [behavioral] information that was previously unavailable,” Romilio concluded in a press release.
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