Dozens of tracks from the land before time were revealed after a drought diminished the Paluxy River in Texas.
Friends of Dinosaur Valley State Park shared images of the dinosaur tracks on social media. Although prehistoric tracks already attract visitors to the park, the newly discovered markings would normally be underwater in Glen Rose, Texas:
Most of the park’s recently-spotted tracks – along with tracks observed on other portions of the Paluxy River – come from the acrocanthosaurus, park spokeswoman Stephanie Salinas Garcia told CNN. An adult acrocanthosaurus could grow to roughly 15 feet tall and weigh nearly 7 tons.
A Tyrannosaurus rex, by comparison, could grow up to 12 feet tall, 40 feet long and weigh up to 8 tons, per National Geographic.
Other tracks discovered on the riverbed were from the sauroposeidon, a dinosaur that could grow to roughly 60 feet tall as an adult and weigh nearly 44 tons, the spokeswoman said.
The tracks date back 113 million years, Garcia said.
Park superintendent Jeff Davis told KCEN-TV that the drought had exposed over 60 tracks on one path. Davis deemed the river a “double-edged sword” as it had gone through layers of silt, limestone and sediment to get to the tracks.
The park expects the tracks to soon be covered as record rainfall has drenched parts of Texas this week, KXAS-TV reported.
″[The tracks give] me this really deep sense of connection to the resources to the history to deep times,” Davis said. “It’s not some movie monster and not some creature from fantasy. It is an animal that walked through this area and it just seems really real to me.”
