The tracks were found at the site that was once a muddy river plain.

Photo credit: Xing Lida et al.

Chinese paleontologists have discovered large two-toed tracks in Lincheng town, Longyan city, Southeast China's Fujian province, which belong to deinonychosaurs, the paleontologist team said on May 6, 2024.

Deinonychosaurs were a group of carnivorous or omnivorous theropod dinosaurs that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Cretaceous period. Famous members of this group include velociraptor and deinonychus, featured in the Jurassic Park films.

At least eight types of dinosaur tracks have been found over the years at the Longxiang tracksite by scientists and experts from the China University of Geosciences and Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum, 12 of which are didactyl deinonychosaur tracks that fall into two morphologies.

The paleontologists found five large tracks, each measuring around 36.4 cm long.

Photo credit: Xing Lida et al.

Among the 12 two-toed fossil tracks, five large tracks measuring 36.4 cm in length and 16.9 cm in width, on average, led researchers to establish a new dinosaur taxon: Fujianipus yingliangi.

Based on relative toe proportions, Fujianipus is a probable troodontid.

"These are currently the largest deinonychosaur tracks found in China and beyond," said Xing Lida, an associate professor at the China University of Geosciences, adding that based on the size of the tracks, it is estimated that Fujianipus was at least 5 meters long, with its hip height of nearly 2 meters.

"The Longxiang tracksite is the best-preserved, largest, and most diverse Late Cretaceous dinosaur tracksite discovered in China to date," said Niu Kecheng, curator of Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum.

The discovery of the Fujianipus yingliangi greatly expands the size range of deinonychosaur tracks, which is of great significance for the study of the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in China, Niu added.

The discovery was recently published in the international journal iScience.

Source: Xinhua and Global Times