Very few, if any, animals alone represent an entire geological episode that lasted almost 100 million years. But Tyrannosaurus rex is no ordinary animal. In addition to that fact, a series of recent finds have rekindled our childhood amazement for the most iconic child of the Cretaceous period. These revelations include evidence that T. rex fathered numerous cat-like babies and an evolutionary explanation for its much-mocked chicken-winged physique. not-so-gentle giant as he made his way through a mystical land now known as North Dakota. “The bones tell us a lot about these animals, but the tracks capture a moment of behavior,” says Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and one of the study’s co-authors. “With a trail, we can follow an animal as it moves across the landscape. This is incredibly rare for T. rex.” A geographical and temporal map of the findings presented in this work. (Falkingham et al., J. Vertebr. Paleontol., 2026) And although paleontologists have unearthed a relative abundance of skeletal remains of T. rex, but unfortunately little sexual material, they have only found a pair of isolated footprints (not footprints) attributable to this gentleman reptile, previously unearthed in New Mexico and Montana, the researchers note. Therefore, this find is especially illuminating as it is the first and only known trail created by an adult T. rex, impressively recreated in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The researchers extrapolated its age to 66.5 million years ago, on the eve of the asteroid impact that devastated non-avian dinosaurs and sparked the Paleocene epoch. It is important to note that it is rare to find footprints and osteological (bone) fossil remains in the same place. On the one hand, it is possible that each of them requires different conservation conditions. Additionally, trails can be trampled by many live animals and therefore prone to destruction; Imagine trying to find evidence of a long-missing hot dog at a state fair in the heart of seagull country. Furthermore, “footprints are not feet,” the researchers point out. So, as sediments move, the resulting footprint may not reflect the morphology of the feet that shaped it. Finally, even tridactyl (three-toed) footprints in perfect condition can be difficult to identify due to similarities in foot shape between mostly carnivorous theropods and herbivorous ornithopods. But this discovery presents a lot of essential evidence. The footprint examined here is approximately 7 meters (23 feet) long and preserves four formidable footprints, each approximately 1 meter (3.2 feet) long and up to 0.80 meters (2.6 feet) wide, cemented for posterity with calcium carbonate. Although heavily eroded, the spacing of the tracks suggests an average stride length of approximately 4 meters (13.1 ft). This results in an estimated walking speed of 1.5 to 2 meters per second (3.3 to 4.5 miles per hour), which is reasonable for a large animal, the researchers clarify. Photographs and renderings of the layout, including brightly colored height maps. (Falkingham et al., J. Vertebr. Paleontol., 2026) In comparison, this is not even twice as fast as the average walking speed of a human being. So hopefully this guy didn’t have anywhere important to be, considering the Chicxulub impactor hit Earth with the force of 10 billion atomic bombs shortly after. Taken together, given the age, locality, and physical characteristics of the footprints, the researchers say that “an adult Tyrannosaurus rex is the most likely footprint maker.” This complements some similar but different previous findings. In a paper published in PLOS One in 2014, researchers described an intriguing trio of concurrent tracks made by other smaller tyrannosaurids, hinting at gregariousness in some members of this fearsome family. The overloading of the steep “gumbo” ridge nearby “means that further excavation is unlikely,” the researchers say. Fortunately, three of the prints will be saved and will soon be airlifted to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Ultimately, this revelation highlights the mind-expanding value of our innate human desire to learn, explains Kent Hups, a science teacher at Northglenn High School and an amateur fossil sleuth who discovered the trail in 2025, as well as one of the study’s co-authors: “As a teacher, I always tell my students that science begins with curiosity, passion, and careful observation. I never imagined that could lead to a discovery like this.” This research was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. This article was fact-checked by Fiona MacDonald and edited by Fiona MacDonald. While we take pride in our process, we are human. If you spot an error, please let us know.
