Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:23:39.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Posterolateral markings on dinosaur tracks, Cameron Dinosaur Tracksite, Lower Jurassic Moenave Formation, northeastern Arizona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2015

Grace V. Irby
Grace V. Irby*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Museum of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff 86001
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Posterolateral markings, appearing as short, rectilinear grooves projecting from the posterior margins of digit IV, occur on tracks in five of 34 trackways at the Cameron Dinosaur Tracksite in the Dinosaur Canyon Member of the Lower Jurassic Moenave Formation, northeastern Arizona. A new ichnospecies, Grallator (Anchisauripus) madseni, is described from these five trackways made by bipedal, tridactyl dinosaurs. The size and morphology of the tracks suggest that they may represent trackmakers similar to Coelophysis and Syntarsus, two dinosaurs described from Triassic and Jurassic deposits in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.

Among the working hypotheses cited as possible causes of the posterolateral markings are: 1) they were made by the dragging of digit III or of the metatarsus; 2) they are marks produced by a feature similar to a horny excrescence or cornified ridge on digitometatarsal pad IV; and 3) they are related to a peculiarity that may have resulted from sexual dimorphism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , July 1995 , pp. 779 - 784
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahlberg, A., and Siverson, M. 1991. Lower Jurassic dinosaur footprints in Helsingborg, southern Sweden. GFF Research Note, Geologiska Foreningens i Stockholm Forhandlingar, 113:339–340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, R. McN. 1976. Estimates of speeds of dinosaurs. Nature, London, 261:129–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baird, D. 1989. Medial Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaur and footprints from New Jersey. The Mosasaur, 4:53–63.Google Scholar
Bird, R. T. 1985. Bones for Barnum Brown. Schreiber, V. T. (ed.), Texas Christian University Press, Ft. Worth, 225 p.Google Scholar
Colbert, E. H. 1961. Dinosaurs: Their Discovery and Their World. E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., New York, 300 p.Google Scholar
Colbert, E. H. 1983. Dinosaurs, An Illustrated History. Hammond, Inc., Maplewood, New Jersey, 224 p.Google Scholar
Colbert, E. H. 1989. The Triassic dinosaur Coelophysis . Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin, 57. Museum of Northern Arizona Press, Flagstaff, 160 p.Google Scholar
Coria, R. A. 1991. Nuevas icnitas de la localidad Estancia Laguna Manantiales, Formacion la Matilde, Jurasico Sup., Santa Cruz, Argentina. Ameghiniana, 28:405.Google Scholar
Edwards, D. P. 1985. Controls on Deposition of the Ancient Fluvial/eolian Depositional System: the Early Jurassic Moenave Formation of North Central Arizona. Unpubl. , Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, 243 p.Google Scholar
Ellenberger, P. 1974. Contribution a la classification des pistes de vertebres du Trias: les types du Stormberg d'Afrique du Sud (II). Palaeovertebrata, Memoire Extraordinaire, 141 p.Google Scholar
Farlow, J. O. 1987. A Guide to Lower Cretaceous Dinosaur Footprints and Tracksites of the Paluxy River Valley, Somervell County, Texas. Baylor University Press, Texas, 50 p.Google Scholar
Farlow, J. O., and Lockley, M. G. 1989. Roland T. Bird, dinosaur tracker: an appreciation, p. 33–36. In Gillette, D. D. and Lockley, M. G. (eds.), Dinosaur Tracks and Traces. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Galton, P. M. 1977. Saurikosaurus pricei, an early saurischian dinosaur from the Triassic of Brazil, with notes on the Herrerasauridae and Poposauridae. Paleontologica Zoologica, 51:234–245.Google Scholar
Haubold, H. 1966. Ein Pseudosuchier-Fahrtenfauna aus dem Buntsandstein Sudthuringiens. Hallesches Jahrbuch fur Mitteldeutsche Erdgeschichte, 8:12–48.Google Scholar
Haubold, H. 1984. Saurierfahrten. Wittenberg Lutherstadt, Germany. Die Neue Brehm-Bucherei, 124–184.Google Scholar
Hitchock, E. 1843. Description of five new species of fossil footmarks from the red sandstone of the valley of the Connecticut River. Transactions of the Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, 254–264.Google Scholar
Hitchock, E. 1845. An attempt to name, classify, and describe the animals that made the fossil footmarks of New England. Proceedings of the 6th Annual Meeting, Association of American Geologists and Naturalists, New Haven, Connecticut, 23–25.Google Scholar
Hitchock, E. 1858. Ichnology of New England. A Report on the Sandstone of the Connecticut Valley, Especially its Fossil Footmarks. W. White, Boston, 232 p.Google Scholar
Irby, G. V. 1991. Posterolateral (?) “hallux-like” impressions on dinosaur tracks, Lower Jurassic Moenave Formation, northeastern Arizona. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 11, Supplement to Number 3:38A.Google Scholar
Irby, G. V. 1993a. Paleoichnology of the Cameron Dinosaur Tracksite, Lower Jurassic Dinosaur Canyon Member, Moenave Formation, northeastern Arizona. Unpubl. , Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, 101 p.Google Scholar
Irby, G. V. 1993b. Early Jurassic dinosaur tracksites, northeastern Arizona. Proceedings of the Annual Symposium, Fossils of Arizona. Mesa Southwest Museum and Southwest Paleontological Society, Mesa, 15–25.Google Scholar
Irby, G. V., and Morales, M. 1993. Rare occurrence of running dinosaurs in a mass tracksite, Lower Jurassic Dinosaur Canyon Member, Moenave Formation, Ward Terrace, northeastern Arizona. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 25(5):56A.Google Scholar
Langston, W. 1974. Non-mammalian Comanchean tetrapods. Geoscience and Man, 8:77–102.Google Scholar
Leakey, M. D. 1979. Footprints in the ashes of time. National Geographic Magazine, 155:446–457.Google Scholar
Leakey, M. D. 1987. Animal prints and trails, p. 451–489. In Leakey, M. D. and Harris, J. M. (eds.), Laetoli, a Pliocene Site in Northern Tanzania. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Leonardi, G. 1979. New archosaurian trackways from the Rio do Peixe Basin, Paraiba, Brazil. Sezione IX, Scienze Geologiche, V(14):139–250.Google Scholar
Leonardi, G. 1987. Glossary and Manual of Tetrapod Footprint Palaeoichnology. Departmento Nacional da Producao Mineral, Brasilia, Brazil, 117 p.Google Scholar
Lockley, M. G., Von Mueller, E., Conrad, K., Matsukawa, M., Greben, R., Paquette, M., Obata, I., and Taketani, Y. 1992. Tracking Dinosaurs. Exhibition Guidebook (in Japanese). Fukushima Museum, Japan, 48 p.Google Scholar
Lucas, A. M., and Stettenheim, P. R. 1972. Avian Anatomy, Integument. Parts I and II, Agriculture Handbook 362, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 612 p.Google Scholar
Lull, R.S. 1904. Fossil footprints on the Jura-Trias of North America. Memoirs of the Boston Society of Natural History, 5:461–557.Google Scholar
Lull, R.S. 1953. Triassic life of the Connecticut Valley (revised edition). Bulletin of the Connecticut State Geological and Natural History Survey, 81:1–331.Google Scholar
Luttrell, P. R., and Morales, M. 1993. Bridging the gap across Moenkopi Wash: a lithostratigraphic correlation, p. 111–127. In Morales, M. (ed.), Aspects of Mesozoic Geology and Paleontology of the Colorado Plateau. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 59. Museum of Northern Arizona Press, Flagstaff.Google Scholar
Madsen, S. 1986. The rediscovery of dinosaur tracks near Cameron, Arizona, p. 20. In Gillette, D. D. (ed.), Abstracts with Program, First International Symposium on Dinosaur Tracks and Traces. Albuquerque, New Mexico.Google Scholar
Novas, F. E. 1993. New information on the systematics and poscranial skeleton of Herrerasaurus ischigualastensis (Theropoda: Herrerasauridae) from the Ischigualasto Formation (Upper Triassic) of Argentina. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 13:400–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsen, P. E. 1980. Fossil great lakes of the Newark Supergroup, p. 352–398. In Manspeizer, W. (ed.), Field Studies of New Jersey Geology and Guide to Field Trips, 52 Annual Meeting, New York State Geological Association, Newark College of Arts and Sciences, Newark, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Olsen, P. E., and Galton, P. M. 1984. A review of the reptile and amphibian assemblages from the Stormberg of Southern Africa, with special emphasis on the footprints and the age of the Stormberg. Paleontologia Africana, 25:87–110.Google Scholar
Peabody, F. E. 1948. Reptile and amphibian trackways from the Lower Triassic Moenkopi Formation of Arizona and Utah. University of California Bulletin, 27(8):295–468.Google Scholar
Peabody, F. E. 1956. Ichnites from the Triassic Moenkopi Formation of Arizona and Utah. Journal of Paleontology, 30:731–740.Google Scholar
Raath, M. A. 1969. A new coelurosaurian dinosaur from the Forest Sandstone of Rhodesia. National Museums of Southern Rhodesia, Arnoldia, 4:1–25.Google Scholar
Reig, O. 1963. La presencia de pinosaurios saurisquios en los“estratos de Ischigualasto” (mesotriasico superior) de las provincias de San Juan y La Rioja (Republic Argentina). Ameghiniana, 111:3–20.Google Scholar
Rowe, T. 1989. A new species of the theropod dinosaur Syntarsus from the Early Jurassic Kayenta Formation of Arizona. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 9:125–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, T., and Gauthier, J. 1990. Ceratosauria, p. 151–168. In Weishampel, D. B., Dodson, P., and Osmolska, H. (eds.), The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Sternberg, C. M. 1932. Dinosaur tracks from Peace River, British Columbia. Annual Report of the National Museum of Canada, 1930:59–85.Google Scholar
Thulborn, R. A. 1984. Preferred gaits of bipedal dinosaurs. Alcheringa, 8:243–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thulborn, R. A. 1989. The gaits of dinosaurs, p. 39–50. In Gillette, D. D. and Lockley, M. G. (eds.), Dinosaur Tracks and Traces. Cambridge University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Thulborn, R. A. 1990. Dinosaur Tracks. Chapman and Hall, London, 410 p.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welles, S. P. 1971. Dinosaur footprints from the Kayenta Formation of northern Arizona. Plateau, Quarterly of the Museum of Northern Arizona, 44:27–38.Google Scholar
Welles, S. P. 1984. Dilophosaurus wetherilli (Dinosauria, Theropoda) osteology and comparisons. Palaeontographica, Abteilung A, 185:85–180.Google Scholar