Showing posts with label thyreophoran tracks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thyreophoran tracks. Show all posts

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Ankylosaur dinoturbation

About a hundred meters down the beach, from the dinoturbation where the sauropod tracks prevail (where the iguanodontoid track from my previous post was photographed), at roughly the same level is another dinoturbation. It's also brecciated, but it seems that thyreophoran tracks are predominant. There is also a track of a giant theropod there and of a few smaller ones.
In the photograph below is one of the better preserved pes tracks. It is a cast of apparently the right pes. Roughly 45 cm long. It is a part of a poorly preserved trackway which stretches some 15 meters.
Parallel to it is another trackway left by the animal of the similar size. At the end of the trackway are a few huge, probably thyreophoran pes prints. It seems that there are also tracks of juvenile ankylosaurs present. The three size classes of the same type of dinosaurs, on the same site, might indicate a structured gregarious behaviour.
In the image on the right is my interpretative red outline and the black outline is Sauropelta right pes track interpretation from Carpenter.


A more recent research at the site revealed that this was in fact the right manus print (natural cast) of the large ankylosaur. The pes track is partially visible in the left corner of the photo.




Sunday, 27 April 2014

Albian sauropods and maybe even stegosaurs (2)

There are more seemingly three-toed, oval pes prints scattered around one of the dinoturbations near Pula. They can be noticed among the obvious sauropod tracks. An example is in the bottom photograph with my red outline speculative interpretation. Could it be the  stegosaur Deltapodus ichnogenus? I can't tell for sure. It could be a sauropod or an ankylosaur of the different morphotype from the ones I have found earlier or just the result of the different dynamics in the print making. This natural cast is just about 15 meters away from the one from my previous post (in the upper photograph). It's of the roughly the same size as well.
Here is my "fantasy" scene from Pula mudflats soon after a tempest (which has left a brecciated surface), some 100 million years ago. A lone, late surviving stegosaur is walking carefully along the slippery muddy shore. It looks like Wuerhosaurus. A pterosaur flies by. Soon, a herd of large sauropods will occupy the terrain, obliterating most of the previous tracks.