Dinosaur tracks

Description:

STEPS OF THE SAUROPODS Then Bird made his big discovery in the Paluxy riverbed — a large sauropod track! Bird had never seen a sauropod track before, and these in the Paluxy were the first distinct prints ever found in the world. As he searched for more, he made an even bigger discovery when he found a near-perfect trackway recording the multiple steps of multiple animals, both sauropods and theropods. The tracks left by the large, plant-eating sauropods with pillarlike legs were rounded hind footprints over a yard long with smaller, clawless horseshoe-shaped front footprints. Finding these footprints revolutionized scientific thinking about sauropods. Now scientists knew they walked on all four feet on land rather than relying on water to support their large bodies. For many years scientists believed the sauropod tracks belonged to the brachiosaur Pleurocoelus. Then, bones found upriver on a ranch in Hood County in 1996 provided new clues for paleontologists. Peter Rose, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University, studied these bones and determined they belonged to a new species of dinosaur that he named Paluxysaurus jonesi in 2007. Rose found that the 20-ton Paluxysaurus jonesi stood 60 to 70 feet long, 12 feet high and 6 feet wide at its shoulder. Its 26-foot-long, giraffe-like neck was even longer than its tail. The head had higher cheekbones than other sauropods with small peg teeth for grabbing food and large nostrils flaring up on top of its snout instead of out. The large feet appear to match the footprints in the Paluxy. The Texas Legislature proclaimed Paluxysaurus jonesi the official dinosaur of Texas in 2009.

Habitat:

Puluxy river bed