Scientists have uncovered the first-ever footprints of club-tailed armored dinosaurs within the mountains of British Columbia, difficult earlier theories about dinosaur migrations and extinctions in North America.
The 100-million-year-old three-toed tracks, found throughout a number of websites close to Tumbler Ridge, BC and northwestern Alberta, present concrete proof that tail-clubbed ankylosaurs roamed western Canada throughout a interval when many paleontologists believed they’d disappeared from the continent.
Named Ruopodosaurus clava — that means “the tumbled-down lizard with a membership/mace” — these newly recognized footprints belong to ankylosaurid dinosaurs, the sledgehammer-tailed cousins of the extra generally discovered nodosaurid ankylosaurs.
“Whereas we don’t know precisely what the dinosaur that made Ruopodosaurus footprints regarded like, we all know that it could have been about 5-6 metres lengthy, spiky and armoured, and with a stiff tail or a full tail membership,” says Dr. Victoria Arbour, curator of paleontology on the Royal BC Museum and lead writer of the examine revealed within the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
What makes this discovery notably vital is the variety of toes preserved within the tracks. In contrast to beforehand recognized ankylosaur footprints referred to as Tetrapodosaurus borealis, which present 4 toes, these new tracks have solely three — a attribute distinctive to the tail-clubbed ankylosaurid dinosaurs.
The analysis fills a essential hole in North America’s fossil report. No skeletal stays of ankylosaurids had beforehand been discovered from roughly 100 to 84 million years in the past, main some paleontologists to theorize these armored giants had quickly vanished from the continent.
“This examine additionally highlights how essential the Peace Area of northeastern BC is for understanding the evolution of dinosaurs in North America – there’s nonetheless heaps extra to be found,” says Arbour, who specializes within the examine of ankylosaurs.
The invention required in depth collaboration between researchers from the Royal BC Museum, Tumbler Ridge Museum, Tumbler Ridge UNESCO World Geopark, and the College of Colorado. Dr. Charles Helm, scientific advisor on the Tumbler Ridge Museum, had noticed these distinctive three-toed ankylosaur trackways for a number of years earlier than inviting Arbour to collaborate on their identification.
“Ever since two younger boys found an ankylosaur trackway near Tumbler Ridge within the yr 2000, ankylosaurs and Tumbler Ridge have been synonymous. It’s actually thrilling to now know by this analysis that there are two kinds of ankylosaurs that referred to as this area residence, and that Ruopodosaurus has solely been recognized on this a part of Canada,” says Helm.
The analysis additionally supplies compelling proof that each main teams of ankylosaurs — the club-tailed ankylosaurids and the flexible-tailed nodosaurids — lived aspect by aspect in the identical environments in the course of the center Cretaceous interval, roughly 100 to 94 million years in the past.
To determine the tracks, researchers employed photogrammetry, creating detailed 3D fashions from pictures. A number of the best-preserved specimens have been discovered as fallen blocks that had tumbled from cliff faces, whereas others stay of their authentic positions alongside distant creek beds and riverbanks.
The distinctive three-toed sample confirms these tracks have been made by ankylosaurids, as ancestral state reconstruction evaluation exhibits that the discount from 4 toes to 3 is a particular attribute of this dinosaur group. The group’s analysis signifies the Ruopodosaurus trackmaker was probably round 1.2 meters tall on the hip, related in measurement to later ankylosaurids like Euoplocephalus and Scolosaurus.
What’s notably exceptional is that a number of trackways at one distant location seem to run parallel with out crossing, suggesting these heavily-armored dinosaurs could have traveled in teams — including one other layer to our understanding of ankylosaur conduct.
Past filling gaps within the fossil report, the invention emphasizes the significance of hint fossils — footprints, burrows, and different marks left by historical creatures — in understanding prehistoric ecosystems, particularly in areas the place skeletal preservation is poor.
For the Tumbler Ridge space, already acknowledged for its wealthy paleontological heritage, this discovery additional cements its standing as considered one of North America’s most essential home windows into the age of dinosaurs.
If our reporting has knowledgeable or impressed you, please think about making a donation. Each contribution, irrespective of the scale, empowers us to proceed delivering correct, participating, and reliable science and medical information. Impartial journalism requires time, effort, and assets—your help ensures we are able to hold uncovering the tales that matter most to you.
Be part of us in making data accessible and impactful. Thanks for standing with us!
