Scientists uncover first known adult T. rex trackway dating back 66.5 million years

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THE TAKEAWAY: 

• Scientists discovered the first adult T. rex trackway.
• The team found four connected, large, three-toed footprints in the North Dakota badlands.
• The tracks date to about 66.5 million years ago, near the very end of the Cretaceous Period.

The first known trackway made by an adult Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) was recently discovered in southwestern North Dakota by a team of scientists.

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Paleontologists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Liverpool John Moores University in England, found four connected, large, three-toed footprints in the North Dakota badlands, not far from the Montana border.

According to a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the trackway is roughly 23 feet long, with the toes measuring around 3.3 feet long.

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The spacing between the prints indicates the dinosaur had a stride of about 13 feet and was likely walking at a speed of approximately 3.5 to 4.5 mph.

"Bones tell us an enormous amount about these animals, but footprints capture a moment of behavior," Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science said. "With a trackway, we can actually follow an animal as it moved across the landscape. That is incredibly rare for T. rex,"

A drone picture of the T.rex footprint. 

(Kent Hups  / FOX Weather)

The trackway was found in 2025 on the Dakota Prairie Grasslands, which is managed by the U.S. Forest Service, in Slope County.

The tracks are preserved as fine-grained sandstone concretions cemented with calcium carbonate, which nucleated around footprint depressions, according to the article.

The researchers noted that, before the discovery, large theropod tracks were uncommon within the Hell Creek Formation, which is a division of mostly Upper Cretaceous and some Lower Paleocene rock in North America.

The scientists excavate the T.rex trackway. 

(Tyler Lyson  / FOX Weather)

Until recently, tracks and trackways associated with non-Tyrannosaurus tyrannosaurids had not provided clear evidence that could be associated with an adult T. rex.

When the team first discovered the trackway, the site was scanned using a 3D scanner to further support their hypothesis. 

"The technology we’re able to apply in the digital age means my colleagues could scan the tracks in the field and then send the 3D information over to me to visualize on my computer and in VR, enabling me to take as close a look as they did in person," Peter Falkingham, a professor of paleobiology at Liverpool John Moores University and lead author of the study said. 

The team used high-resolution 3D surface scanning to document each footprint and the full trackway. 

(Andry Atuchin)

The team also found T. rex skeletal elements and skeletons in the local area, further strengthening their belief that the tracks were made by T. rex.

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The tracks date to about 66.5 million years ago, near the very end of the Cretaceous Period, shortly before an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs.

The footprints are expected to be recovered this fall and transported to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.