Gigantic Velociraptor footprints found in China
Discovered footprints of a 5-meter-long predatory dinosaur, challenging what was previously known about the Velociraptor's size range.
The footprints were found in Fujian province, south-east China, by an international team of researchers together with paleontologist Dr. Anthony Romilio of the University of Queensland's Dinosaur Lab who provided a detailed analysis.
“When people think of predatory dinosaurs, they most likely think of the ones from the Jurassic Park films: aggressive, muscular, human-sized hunters,”
Dr. Romilio said.
“But these footprints were left by a much more slender and intelligent group of the Velociraptor family known as the Troodontidae, which emerged in the Late Jurassic about 95 million years ago.“
This raptor was approximately 5 meters long with 1.8 meter long legs, far exceeding the size of the raptors depicted in Jurassic Park.
“Imagine something like that coming at you at full speed!”
The footprints were discovered in 2020 by a research team led by Associate Professor Lida Xing of the China University of Geosciences, who decided to explore dinosaur footprints reported in Fujian province. The footprints of a variety of dinosaurs have been discovered, including the two-toed tracks characteristic of predatory dinosaurs.
Dr. Romilio said the footprints were compared to other known two-toed dinosaur footprints from across Asia, North and South America and Europe.
“We discovered that this type of footprints has a particular shape, making it truly unique. The concept of large Troodontids has only recently emerged in the paleontological community. Bones discovered in Alaska suggest a trend towards gigantism near the ancient Arctic Circle, an area with potentially less competition between species due to long periods of winter darkness. But our findings suggest that these giant raptors roamed much further south and were more widely dispersed. Interestingly, some members of our research team also worked on the world's smallest dinosaur footprints: raptor footprints in South Korea, just a centimeter long. This simply demonstrates the incredible size range among predatory dinosaurs, highlighting their adaptability and ecological diversity.”
The Velociraptor was named Fujianipu in homage to the province where the footprints were discovered.
The research paper is published in https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.109598
