New duck-billed dinosaur footprints found in US

Washington, July 7 :

Duck-billed dinosaurs not only lived in multi-generational herds but thrived in the ancient high latitude, polar ecosystem as paleontologists have discovered a remarkable new track site filled with duck-billed dinosaur footprints in Denali National Park, Alaska.

Duck-billed dinosaurs are technically referred to as hadrosaurs.

The findings provide new insight into the herd structure and paleobiology of northern polar dinosaurs in an arctic greenhouse world.

“Denali is one of the best dinosaur footprint localities in the world. What we found that last day was incredible — so many tracks, so big and well preserved,” said Anthony Fiorillo, curator of earth sciences at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in the US.

“Many had skin impressions, so we could see what the bottom of their feet looked like. There were many invertebrate traces — imprints of bugs, worms, larvae and more — which were important because they showed an ecosystem existed during the warm parts of the years,” Fiorillo explained.

The findings appeared in the journal Geology. (IANS)