Re: Dinosaur Track Sizes and examples

["Ralph W. Miller III" <gbabcock@best.com>]

"Simon, Robert (RISI)" requested "information and hopefully photos of sizes of
dinosaur tracks."

A nice one stop visual reference for seven genera of dinosaurs is the Pat
Redman illustration (after research by Martin Lockley) on page 141 of Louis
Psihoyos' and John Knoebber's _Hunting Dinosaurs_, a book everyone should have
in their collections.  It shows tracks (with scale bars) believed to have been
made by _Iguanodon_, _Coelurus_, _Ceratosaurus_, _Corythosaurus_,
_Apatosaurus_, _Triceratops_, and _Euoplocephalus_.  I've used this as a "field
guide" for kids trying to identify dinosaur footprint cutouts.

Runner-up resource would be the tracks illustrated at the top of page 8 in
Sylvia J. Czerkas' and Everett C. Olson's _Dinosaurs Past and Present, Volume
II_, from Gregory S. Paul's article, "The Science and Art of Restoring the Life
Appearance of Dinosaurs and Their Relatives: A Rigorous How-to Guide."  Here
you will see tracks made by a derived thecodont, a large theropod, a
prosauropod, a sauropod, a nodosaur, and an iguanodont.  They are drawn to the
" same stride length" so you will have to figure out the scale yourself.

Three dinosaur track illustrations are at
<www.vmnh.org/curators/dinogall.html>.  You may also wish to check out the
"Dinosaur Trace Fossils" page at <www.emory.edu/GEOSCIENCE/HTML/Dinotraces.htm,
which provides good references (such as books by Thulborn and by Lockley which
probably have what you want) and many links to other web sites with images of
dinosaur tracks.

Charles Pillmore of the U.S. Geological Survey discovered a probable _T. rex_
track in New Mexico in 1992.  The best published photograph I have seen of this
(small though the photograph is) is on page 137 of the aforementioned _Hunting
Dinosaurs_ book.  A cast of this print, said to be 86 cm (34 inches) long, is
held by track expert Martin Lockley in the photo.  It looks much like the
prints of smaller theropods (such as allosaurids) but has broader, lumpier toes
and does show an impression of the hallux.  I should point out that it is
probably almost impossible to positively identify an ichnite (fossil track)
with the species that made it, but in the case of the _T. rex_ track, it is so
enormous that there are at this point no other contenders for the role.

An overhead projector will enable you to transfer the drawings to the proper
scale.
Some people have used paper or cardboard forms to make large dinosaur track
cutouts, but I prefer black oil cloth, vinyl, or rubber.  More durable, and
washable.

Have fun!

-- Ralph W. Miller III       gbabcock@best.com