Footprints found in Spain show carnivorous dinosaurs were fast and furious

It almost seems unfair. The dinosaurs carnivores were armed with menacing teeth, wielding dangerous claws, and boasted keen vision and smell. And, as new research confirms, some were pretty fast, too.

Two traces of fossilized footprints from the Cretaceous of about 120 million years ago, discovered in the Spanish region of La Rioja, show that the medium-sized carnivorous dinosaur species that left them could run at about 45 kilometers per hour, he said Thursday a group of scientists.

This speed is similar to that achieved by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, the fastest human being in the world.

Two footprint tracks were discovered located about 20 meters apart from each other, one with seven tracks and the other with five.

Each footprint – an imprint of a three-toed paw with claws – is about 12 inches long. They were imprinted on the muddy surface of a lake plain in a region also populated by long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs, herbivorous bipedal dinosaurs, flying reptiles called pterosaurs, crocodiles, and turtles.

“Their ability to run very fast and their maneuvering skills surely allowed them to chase their prey very efficiently,” said Pablo Navarro-Lorbes, a doctoral student in paleontology at the University of La Rioja and lead author of the research published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The tracks have characteristics that show that they were made by a theropod, a group that includes all carnivorous dinosaurs, including the famous Tyrannosaurus rex. Theropods were bipedal and the largest could be 15 meters long.

The researchers believe that the footprints were made by two different individuals of the same species. They suspect they belonged to one of two theropod families: spinosaurs, many of which fed on fish, or Carcharodontosaurus, known for their shark teeth. The individuals measured between 4 and 5 meters long and 2 meters high, and weighed between 200 and 300 kilos.

The running speed was calculated from the relationship between the height of the animal’s hip – estimated from the length of the footprint – and the length of the stride. The stride length of one trail is 5.6 meters, while the other is 5.2 meters.

One of the dinosaurs could run at a speed of between 31.7 and 44.6 kilometers per hour – one of the highest speeds ever estimated for a dinosaur – and the other at a speed of between 23.4 and 37.1 kilometers per hour. One of the tracks indicates a smooth increase in speed. The other suggests that the animal was maneuvering while running.

Of the countless dinosaur tracks found around the world, almost all were left by a saurian when walking and not running. The fastest running speed estimated from the tracks was that of a theropod from the Jurassic period in the state of Utah, in the United States, of 55 km per hour.