Re: solnhofen KAYENTA FORMATION seemingly-bird tracks

["Ray Stanford" <dinotracker@earthlink.net>]

Hi Rob,

    You reported:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rob Gay" <rob_redwing@hotmail.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2001 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: solnhofen


"...Other note on early birds...apparently there are bird tracks in the L.
Jurassic Kayenta Formation..."

    Do you know where I might see a photo of them?  Has this been published,
or is it something you have heard from someone who saw them, etc.?

    Also, do the rumored Kayenta bird tracks show a partially or completely
'reversed' hallux (digit I) impression, or any at all?

    Some of the Early Cretaceous, small tridactyl tracks and trackways I
have found here in Maryland are interpreted as bird tracks by some  (but not
all) of the paleontologists who have seem them. (These tracks, of course,
are relatively recent in the geochronological sense, compared to L. Jurassic
tracks.)  Problem is, it seems to me that non-perching birds that do not
have a 'reversed' perching-type hallux, also may not have a hallux that
reaches the ground.  In such cases, I would be hard-put to say whether such
a track or track-way was made by an avian or by a non-avian dinosaur.

    Huuummm... Now if I could just find such a track-way where the animal's
tracks suddenly cease (and where there is no change in the substrate
character, that in and of itself might have prevented further leaving of
tracks) and where there are tracks of no large animal around suggesting the
little track maker was nabbed by, say, a hungry theropod.  :)

    Anyhow, help in seeing a photographic image (preferably) or, in absence
of that, even a good quality drawing of the L. Jurassic Kayenta
possibly-bird tracks would be much appreciated.

    Thanks for mentioning it, Rob.
    Ray Stanford