This series of footprints was made by a bipedal, meat-eating dinosaur over 200 million years ago in what is now Connecticut. In fact, trackways of this type represent the first fossil evidence that dinosaurs inhabited North America, as well as England, where their earliest fossils were found. Paleontologists who study fossil trackways specialize in the science of “ichnology.”

These tracks further document the diversity of the kinds of fossils that are useful to paleontologists – it isn’t all about the most fantastic skeleton (though of course, those “body fossils” are incredibly useful). Trace fossils, like tracks, eggs, nests, and skin impressions can yield a great deal of information about behaviors of extinct animals. For example – from trackways, we can better approximate how dinosaurs moved!
– Kristi Curry Rogers, Curator of Paleontology