TERUEL, July 3 (EUROPA PRESS) –
New research from the Dinopolis Foundation has deepened our knowledge of the fossil footprints, or ichnites, of stegosaurs, a group of herbivorous dinosaurs that walked on quadrupedal legs and were characterized by plates, or spikes, running from the neck to the end of the tail.
The study analyzed tracks attributed to this type of dinosaur, located at eight sites dating back approximately 150 to 145 million years in Teruel province, creating the world’s largest database of this type of track.
The deposits are located in the municipalities of Ababuj, Aguilar del Alfambra, El Castellar, Galve, La Puebla Valverde and Formiché Alto. The studied ichnites are known by the scientific name Deltapodus due to the triangular inverted delta shape characteristic of the footprints and kidney-shaped hands.
The year 2010 marked a major turning point in the study of this type of footprint, as the Foundation’s paleontologists discovered a track – several successive footprints of the same individual – 23 metres long at the El Castellar site. This discovery allowed the identification of a new type of footprint called Deltapodus ibericus.
In the new study, 57 of the best-preserved ichnites from the El Castellar site and 29 from seven other sites (86 tracks in total) were individually analyzed to both analyze how they differed from tracks of other four-legged dinosaurs and to delve deeper into previous hypotheses put forward by the team regarding the possible herd behavior of these dinosaurs.
In this regard, paleontologist Diego Castanera, the first author of the publication, stated that herd behavior “is well documented in other dinosaur groups; however, in stegosaurs it has only been hypothesized at two sites in Teruel, El Castellar and Aguilar del Alfambra.”
Thanks to this study, as the paleontologist from the Dinopolis Foundation emphasized, “we were able to confirm previous hypotheses that the stegosaurs that left the tracks walked in the same direction and at the same walking speed. Therefore, these data confirm this type of movement behavior,” he reasoned.
Castanera explained that during the investigation, 3D modeling of the sites was “fundamental” to identify the tracks, since in sites with hundreds of tracks, such as in El Castellar, where there are about 800, “it is very difficult to follow in the footsteps of dinosaurs. For this reason, the study “will help to recognize tracks of this type in other parts of the world and perhaps to recognize other cases of herd behavior,” he admitted.
Louis Mampel, co-author of the publication, highlighted the use of laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques, “which not only allowed us to collect new scientific data from some already known sites, but also allow us to preserve the paleontological heritage through a 3D model.”
“We have previously noticed large variations in the shape of this type of ichnite, but until now it had not been studied in detail whether they all had the same type of trace or were different,” he explained.
For his part, the managing director of the Dinopolis Foundation, Alberto Cobos, a co-author of the publication, pointed to the “uncertainty” the Foundation had about the dinosaurs that left some of the dozens of tracks discovered.
“In 2010, we attributed some of them to stegosaur producers and described Deltapodus ibericus. Now, after relating the variations in the shape of the ichnites to the state of the sediment, we have gone on to report on the anatomy and position of the feet and hands or, given the size of the tracks, we conclude that all the ichnites studied at this site and seven others in different municipalities of Teruel can also be attributed to Deltapodus ibericus.”
“We can now firmly state that the El Castellar site is the most important in the world in terms of scientific significance and the number of stegosaurus tracks,” he stressed.
The study was published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports of the Nature group and is called “The complexity of tracking stegosaurs and their herd behavior.” The authors are paleontologists from the Teruel-Dinopolis Paleontological Complex Foundation Diego Castanera, Luis Mampel and Alberto Cobos. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-64298-9.
The publication is part of a study by the FOCONTUR research group, financed by the Department of Education, Science and Universities of the Government of Aragon. It is also included in the studies of the Paleontology Department of Teruel, financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of the Government of Spain.