For 66 million years, something extraordinary remained hidden beneath the rugged landscape of North Dakota — until a schoolteacher helped lead researchers straight to it.
Archaeologists have uncovered four enormous three-toed footprints believed to belong to a Tyrannosaurus rex, creating what researchers describe as an incredibly rare glimpse into how the legendary predator actually moved.
The tracks were discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in the state’s Badlands. Together, the four footprints stretch across roughly 23 feet, with each step measuring about 3.3 feet.
But the discovery is remarkable for a reason that goes far beyond their size.
Individual T. rex footprints — from both adults and juveniles — have been found before. What makes this discovery different is that the footprints form a continuous trackway, allowing scientists to follow the dinosaur’s movement across the ancient landscape.
Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, explained that fossil bones reveal a great deal about dinosaurs, but footprints can preserve something bones cannot: a moment of behavior.
A skeleton can tell scientists what a T. rex looked like.
These tracks can tell them what it was doing.
And after 66 million years, four enormous footprints may have captured one of the most elusive moments in the life of the world’s most famous dinosaur — a T. rex on the move.