{"id":33224,"date":"2025-04-19T06:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T10:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=33224"},"modified":"2025-04-17T10:17:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T14:17:42","slug":"ankylosaur-footprints-from-canada-are-first-of-their-kind-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/?p=33224","title":{"rendered":"Ankylosaur footprints from Canada are first of their kind in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three-toed prints from B.C., Alberta fill gap in fossil record<\/h4>\n
Emily Chung<\/a><\/span> \u00b7 <\/span>CBC News \u00b7 <\/span>
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Victoria Arbour, curator at the Royal B.C. Museum, with Ruopodosaurus prints (far left for the foot and middle for the hand) in the field at Wolverine River near Tumbler Ridge, B.C., in August 2023. (Royal B.C. Museum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>
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\u00a0Scientists have identified fossil dinosaur footprints from a new species in B.C. and Alberta. They’re believed to be the first tracks found in the world to be identified as belonging to club-tailed ankylosaurs, offering new insights about gaps in the fossil record.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The new species, which has been named Ruopodosaurus clava, <\/em>would have been an armoured dinosaur about five to six metres long, reports a new study published this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Victoria Arbour, curator of paleontology at the Royal B.C. Museum and lead author of the new study, said Ruopodosaurus would have lumbered through the coastal redwood forests between the Rocky Mountains and an inland sea that covered Saskatchewan and Alberta during the Middle Cretaceous, about 100 million\u00a0to\u00a094 million years ago. Previously identified footprints suggest the other creatures it lived alongside: giant crocodiles, duck-billed dinosaurs and bird-like dinosaurs \u2014 and a related group of four-toed ankylosaurs.<\/p>\n

But no bones of three-toed, club-tailed ankylosaurs have ever been found in North America from the Middle Cretaceous, which, until now, suggested they may have gone extinct during this time, before reappearing about 84 million years ago, perhaps by the migration of populations from Asia. The tracks from this new species suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n

This species, Arbour said, is “new for North America. It’s new for the world\u2026. And it really helps us fill in this gap in the fossil record.”<\/p>\n

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Royal B.C. Museum fossil preparator Calla Scott and former University of Victoria MSc student Teague Dickson apply a glue to a slab containing the fossil ankylosaur footprints to prepare it for making a silicone mould of the tracks in August 2024. (Royal B.C. Museum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More to read: https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/science\/ankylosaurid-footprints-1.7511766<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three-toed prints from B.C., Alberta fill gap in fossil record Emily Chung \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 Posted: Apr 16, 2025 4:52 PM EDT | Last Updated: April 16 \u00a0Scientists have identified fossil dinosaur footprints from a new species in B.C. and Alberta. They’re believed to be the first tracks found in the world to be … Continue reading Ankylosaur footprints from Canada are first of their kind in the world<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":645,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1651],"tags":[1782,79],"class_list":["post-33224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dinosaurs-and-company","tag-anklosaurus","tag-dinosaurs"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33226,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33224\/revisions\/33226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsffa.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}