Dinosaur footprints found in northern Germany show that two carnivorous dinosaurs – one large and one small – enjoyed a stroll along a beach 142 million years ago, researchers report.
A University of Southern Denmark biologist who analyzed the prints says they reveal clues to what the daily life of the dinosaurs may have been like.
Unlike geologists and paleontologists who've also studied the tracks, looking with a biologist's eye can provide a different perspective, says researcher Pernille Troelsen.
"As a biologist, I can contribute with knowledge about behavior of the individual animals," she says.
Initial measurements of the footprints found in stone formations near the city of Hannover showed the larger animal's foot was 13.5-inches long, about like a U.S. size 15 man's shoe, while the smaller creature had a 9.5-inch foot, like a size 6 shoe.
That suggests the larger of the two dinosaurs, both assumed to be members of a meat-eating species in the Megalosauripus genus, stood around 5.2 feet tall at the hip while the smaller one may have stood 3.6 feet.
That would make them around the same size as the well-known Velociraptor, and they were likely similar agile hunting dinosaurs that walked and ran on two legs, Troelsen says.
The tracks at one point show the smaller creature broke into a trot, perhaps in an effort to keep pace with the larger one.
"If so, this may illustrate two social animals, perhaps a parent and a young," suggests Troelsen.
Previous studies led scientists to conclude that some dinosaurs were indeed social animals, with one or more adults caring for younger animals in a kind of "dino daycare."
However, there's no way to confirm the two tracks were make at the same time, Troelsen acknowledges.
"They may be many years apart, in which case it maybe reflects two animals randomly crossing each other's tracks," Troelsen said. "We can also see that a duckbill dinosaur (Iguanodon) has crossed their tracks at one time or another, so there has been some traffic in the area."
Although most paleontologists estimate carnivorous dinosaur species could run as fast as 25 mph, the Hannover footprints suggest the two creatures were strolling mostly at a leisurely pace.
Dinosaur footprints and foot tracks from the same period as the as those described by Troelsen have been discovered in several European countries, including Northern Germany, England and Spain.
The Hannover footprints were found in an area where similar ones have been discovered for the last 200 years. Troelsen presented her findings in July at the annual meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists in Poland.
