Did Dinosaurs Flock Together?
Newly discovered footprints reveal that different types of dinosaurs may have traveled together!
Courtesy of Dr Brian Pickles/University of Reading
A technician from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada works at a site where dinosaur tracks were found in 2024.
Did dinosaurs hang out with other dinosaurs? It looks that way! Based on recently found dinosaur footprints, a team of British and Canadian scientists think some dinosaurs may have traveled together in a group called a herd. What’s more, there may have been more than one type of dinosaur in the herd!
The footprints, which were discovered in 2024 at Dinosaur Provincial Park in Canada, travel in one direction as if made by a group of dinosaurs walking together. But they were not all made by the same type of dinosaur.
Thirteen of the footprints were made by up to five ceratopsians. A ceratopsian is a type of herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaur. The name may sound familiar to anyone who has ever heard of Triceratops, probably the most famous type of ceratopsian.
Courtesy of Dr Brian Pickles/University of Reading
This image shows two views of a footprint left by an ankylosaurid. The brush in the photo on the left shows how large the footprint is.
But some of the footprints came from another type of herbivore called an ankylosaurid. This suggests that the ceratopsians and the ankylosaurid were walking together. Scientists say animals of two different species will sometimes form herds for protection from predators.
Amazingly, the scientists also found the footprints of a pair of Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaurs. These prints cross paths with the other ones. This means the meat-eating T. rexes were not walking with the ceratopsians and ankylosaurid. In fact, the T. rexes may have been trying to hunt the other group.
Courtesy of Dr Brian Pickles/University of Reading
Dr. Brian Pickles excavates a dinosaur footprint, one of many that were found in 2024.
But the scientists say they can’t be sure if the footprints mean there was a dinosaur chase…or even a dinosaur herd. After all, it’s hard to know if all the footprints were made at the same time. It’s possible the ceratopsians and the ankylosaurid weren’t walking together. It’s also possible the T. rexes came along weeks after the herd had already passed through.
Whatever happened, it’s clear there was dinosaur activity in the area—a lot of it. For Brian Pickles of the University of Reading, who co-authored the study of the footprints, that’s a thrill.
“It was incredibly exciting to be walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs 76 million years after they laid them down,” Pickles said.
