Dinosaur "Death Pits" Created by Giant's Footprints?
Chinese pits filled with an astounding array of small dinosaur fossils may have been created by a 20-ton behemoth wandering a volcanic landscape, a new study suggests.
Following in a giant dinosaur's footsteps could be fatal—but not for the reasons you might suspect.
Mysterious "death pits" holding the fossil skeletons of nearly two dozen small dinosaur species may actually be the 160-million-year-old footprints of an ancient behemoth, a new study suggests.
The first of three dino-filled pits was unearthed nearly a decade ago in northwestern China's remote Xinjiang region.
Inside the 3.5- to 6.5-foot-deep (1- to 2-meter-deep) depressions were the largely complete skeletons of several species of small theropods, bipedal raptors from the lineage that includes Tyrannosaurus rex.
The stacked fossils included Guanlong, or "crested dragon," a T. tex ancestor with a Mohawk-like head adornment.
