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ers concluded that this was a feeding ground, perhaps after a kill or—perhaps less
exciting to most people—following some other cause of death for the sauropods,
which brought in allosaurs to scavenge. More compelling, it conjures a scene of an
adult
Allosaurus
and its offspring dining together on the remains of a young and
then-recently departed sauropod.
Other Cool Stuff You Probably Didn't Know about Dinosaur Tracks
Because there are so many dinosaur tracks recorded in Late Triassic through Late
Cretaceous rocks worldwide, the chances are good that a few unusual or otherwise
stimulating insights might be conveyed by some of them. Sure enough, some dino-
saurtrackstellamazingstories.ThefollowingisashortselectionofwhatIthinkare
provocative perspectives on dinosaurs bestowed by their tracks, and that we might
not have ever figured out from bones alone.
Imagine you are a small theropod dinosaur, out on a walkabout one fine Jur-
assic day, on the prowl for food or mates, and not necessarily in that order. As you
strideoversomeslightlybumpyterrain,yousmellsomethinginterestinginameter-
wide mud-filled pit. As soon as you jump into the pit to investigate, your feet start
sinking into the saturated mud and you suddenly realize you're stuck. Even worse,
as you struggle to free yourself, you've further liquefied the mud and caused it
to envelop you even more. At some point you just stop flailing because you can't
move. You've just been buried alive.
During the next few days, several others of your species make the same mis-
take. A few make it out, but most others, including additional species of dinosaurs,
likewise become stuck and die. Meanwhile, the sauropods that unwittingly made
these traps are already miles away, having no idea that they contributed to the as-
phyxiation and fossilization of these small theropods. Their deep tracks, pushing
down into the moist substrate, had created new hazards for smaller animals, which
fell in and became mired in the squishy track interiors.
Oddly enough, the preceding scenario is exactly what three paleontologists
proposedtoexplainhowsomeexquisitelypreservedsmalltheropodsinMiddleJur-
