Oldest And Smallest Deinonychus Footprints Found

Saturday, December 12, 2009, 0:50
Science
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Paleontologists from U.S. and China have worked together on research about deinonychus, a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaur.

They found footprints of deinonychus class and named them Menglongipussinensisichnogen’s footprints. Footprints were discovered in Chicheng County in Hebei Province, China.

Discovered footprints are oldest and smallest of deinonychus class.

deinonychus-2

Image credits: [Wikimedia]

Deinonychus was a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid dinosaur. There is one described species, Deinonychus antirrhopus. This 3.4 meter (11 ft) long dinosaur lived during the early Cretaceous Period, about 115-108 million years ago (from the mid-Aptian to early Albian stages).

Fossils have been recovered from the U.S. states of Montana, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, in rocks of the Cloverly Formation and Antlers Formation, though teeth that may belong to Deinonychus have been found much farther east in Maryland.