Dear Xianghui Li,

seem to be sauropod footprints (herbivore dinosaurs), albeit quite small. Unfortunately from these pictures is not easy to define the trackways.

About the climate and the environment, it cannot be assesed without a detailed study of the rocks and of the sedimentary succession. It would be purely speculative.

Regards,

Angelo

Dear Angelo Cipriani,

Thank you for useful information for the footprints!

Best wishes!

Xianghui Li

Ni-hao Li Xianghui

are you sure these are dino footprints ?

The spacing and distribution on the surface does not feature any regularity.

Not sure much can be said from this evidence only.

marc

Do you have a scale , it looks interesting, I work with tracks for 35 years..

Hello Li;

If these marks are actually dinosaur footprints, the animal had elephantine legs and so would have been a sauropod. The images are difficult to interpret. That is all I can see.

Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

Hi, dear Marc,

We are not sure 100% if the prints were made by dinosaur, but we prefer an interpretation of dinosaur footprints. That is why we questioned.

Thank you!

Xianghui

Dear Christian,

We can not reach the outcrop as it occurs 5 m high. So, we just hand up a hammer to scale the prints!

Thank you!

Xianghui

Dear Jim Des Lauriers,

Thank you for the helpful information!

Regards.

Xianghui

Oh! That's good. The surface we are looking at is an impression of the footprint. That is why the area with in a print is convex. The slab that actually contains the print has fallen away. In an earlier comment Cipriana noted that the tracks are rather small. I still like a small sauropod.

Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

Hi, James Des Lauriers,

You are right! The prints occur on the basal surface of the stratum. We have to look up to the base of stratum. Thank yor for useful imformation！

Regards.

Xianghui

My Friend Dr. Giuseppe Leonardi can help you.

Perhaps the footprints are of a ornithopod dinosaur.

My Friend Dr. Giuseppe Leonardi can help you.

Dear Antoni Lacasa Ruiz,

Thank you for the message!

Regards.

Xianghui

Hi, Francisco de Castro Bonfim Junior,

Thank you for providing a clue to identify the footprints.

Best wishes.

Xianghui

Hi Xianghui Li,

The two on the right seem to be theropod (carnivore),or at least tridactyl footprints as I drew in the image, even I could see a claw impression. The others could be the same but worse preserved, or maybe sauropod footprints, but they are too small. If you have any information it could be useful. A sedimentary study with the sandstone could provide lots of information about the environment and the climate. Hope this was helpful.

Best wishes,

Álvaro Simarro

I am not so certain there are any tridactyl tracks on the picture at all (and if those are badly preserved tridactyl tracks they are much more likely to be ornithopod tracks, to produce something that can be confused with sauropod tracks the toes must be very broad and the shape more round than elongate). Under the correct conditions some sauropod tracks will show impressions that show individual phalanges.

But I also don't see any crescent shaped smaller manual imprints that would be typicl for sauropods. This could be due to preservation though, as the manus generally supports less weight and would not be be as easily preserved in undertracks for example.

Agree with Álvaro Simarro and Jens, I think on the orange line you can see tridactyl footprints badly preserved but clarely bipedal dino. The blue and green shows tetrapod origin footprints, and the others are quite problematic to infered to a track. Try to search layers below.

Dear colleague Xianghui Li,

First, let me give you my congratulations for your discovery. This slab (under surface of it) with a score or so of dinosaur tracks is very interesting. Also answering to the suggestion of my friend Francisco Bonfim (we worked together in the field) I’ll try to understand them.

I work on tetrapod tracks (Permian) since 1972, and Cretaceous tracks since 1975, mostly dinosaur tracks, in Brazil, Italy, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Australia. I’ve seen thousands of them in many other countries. I’ve in press a large book on Brazilian dino tracks at the Indiana Uni Press.

· These are surely dinosaur tracks, probably from a lot of distinct individuals, probably of the same kind. All of them seems to be bipedal dinosaurs.

· They are surely convex hyporeliefs, i.e. natural casts on the sole of the upper layer, as was said by Jim des Lauriers. And the layer on which they had walked is no more in place, it fell down. You perhaps can find fragments of this layer with tracks searching in the downfall debris.

· There is the possibility that these footprints are the concave hyporeliefs and undertracks at the same time (casts of undertracks).

· There is at least one score of dinosaur tracks in the picture, of quite different quality of impression; some of them with anatomical details, two or three with a good outline, other are just general impressions.

· Those on the right are best quality; on the left they are very bad quality; however, they are equally footprints, because of the association and of the (medium) same dimensions.

· It is always difficult (and inappropriate) trying to classify tracks from pictures, without having the tracks in the hands.

· If you permit, sorry, 5 m are not a distance preventing from going up and examining the material. There are ladders. Christian Meyer and I and Martin Lockley worked one month (1998) and Christian many times more at the Cal Ork’o Ichnosite (Sucre, Bolivia) in the Andes, hanged the whole day on a piton and rope. So do I in Dolomites, Italy.

· I tried to do a sketch (in attachment) of what I can see in the photos. Sorry, I’m not organized here for a better drawing.

· I can’t see a surely complete trackway (sequence of footprints of the same trackmaker). They are sparse footprints. Mark Philippe noted that there is no regularity in spacing and distribution. He is right. They are pertaining to a number of individuals.

· One of the best proofs or evidences that these are really tracks, is the presence of quite evident DR (at least in the tracks 1,2,4,5, (8,9?), 10, 11). DR is the displacement rim: the sand and or clay, mud, displaced around the track by the weight of the animal maker. As this is a natural cast (convex hyporelief), the DR is naturally and evidently concave.

· I tried to calculate or extrapolate the dimensions of the tracks (with some regards to the perspective), The medium length of the footprints is about ± 20-25 cm, if the hammer-shaft is 33 cm (and it is also in diagonal position, which is a problem). So they are relatively small footprints.

· Almost all of them seem to be longer than wide. (Perhaps, for the 6 best footprints in the picture (in perspective deformation), the average index L/W = ~ 1,33.

· Some of the footprints are clearly tridactyl (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ?7, 9).

· Some of them have claws or hoofs (at least 2, ?5, 9).

· The hypexes I can see show all acute angles.

· A number of footprints, of very bad quality, not numbered, sometimes represented here with hatched outline) are neither classified nor classifiable, however, they are all in the same range of dimensions and also in a similar sector of direction of the main axe as the other tracks. Anyway, they are (bad quality) footprints.

· Many footprints, all of the recognizable, are going “upward” in the picture. There is here a preferential corridor, for example a water-border, the border of a lake etc.

· Footprint #9 is a special case. It seems to be tridactylous; it is associated with another, smaller tridactylous footprint partially in overlap, at the left (of another smaller individual); and is inside a very large concavity, too large to be a DR, to concave (it seems so) to be a sauropod hind-footprint, that, in the sole of the layer, ought to be convex, like the other tracks here.

· The track-maker were here surely all bipedal, no sauropods at all; however, I can’t decide if they are theropod or ornithopod tracks. It seems to me more probable than they could be ornithopod tracks, as Jens Carl Dieter wrote above. As a matter of fact, the toes are wide and the extremities of them are often blunt. In one or two cases they can seem to be claws, but more commonly they seem to be hooves. But I can’t exclude however that they could be fat-toed theropod tracks. It is often difficult distinguishing between them, when the material is not good quality. Also if one can measure exactly the tracks, and here I can’t, in any diagram there is an area of intersection between the polygonals of ornithopod footprints and those of fat-toed theropods. Here, surely there is not clear evidence of sharp claws.

I would suggest, dear colleague Xianghui Li, you would publish this fine material.

Cheers! Giuseppe Leonardi