Wednesday 2 April 2014

Dinosaurs were messy ... (3)

Here is an example how hard it can be to correctly identify the tracks. I have photographed a small fraction of the Barremian (cca 125 mya) dinoturbation at the Pogledalo promontory of the Main Brijun island in Istria (Croatia).
Outlined with the red line are all the visible theropod footprints. A very large single foot impression is only partly visible under the covering sediment. Applying Dalla Vecchia's ideal footprint model of the theropod from that site (the green silhouette) I managed deriving the track size of that particular theropod. It was bout 65 cm long. The beast itself was at least 10-11 meters long. The size of an adult  Altispinax. Other footprints are from considerably smaller individuals. The prints were distorted due to the mud collapse. There are at least 8 theropod footprints in this photo. Probably more.




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