If you’re out and about hunting fossils in the UK, the Natural History Museum’s Fossil Explorer app is very useful. The NHM also have plenty of fantastic fossil information more generally, too.
For all the latest information on activities online or in the Fossil Shop, please keep an eye on the Hidden Horizons website!
And to find other fossily teaching resources here on fossilhub, please click on the fossils hashtag.
After an interval of many months, I’ve been prompted to finally produce a fifth part of Chalking With Dinosaurs, featuring me making footprints in the sands of Scarborough’s South Bay, and then hunting dinosaur footprints in the rocks of the South Cliff:
Held from Saturday August 1st to Friday August 14th 2020, Fossilympics20 was run by Liam Herringshaw on Twitter under the auspices of the Yorkshire Fossil Festival. Here are the final results and medal table.
Fossilympics20 Final Medal Table
Entity
Gold
Silver
Bronze
TOTAL
Canada
4
0
0
4
Mollusca
3
3
2
8
Great Britain
3
0
2
5
Ichnotaxa
2
2
2
6
Brachiopoda
2
1
1
4
Echinodermata
1
1
1
3
Problematica
1
1
1
3
Australia
1
1
1
3
Avalonia
1
1
0
2
Reptilia
1
1
0
2
France
1
1
0
2
Chalcogens
1
0
1
2
Scotland
1
0
1
2
Yorkshire
1
0
0
1
Ginkgophyta
1
0
0
1
Egypt
1
0
0
1
Bacteria
1
0
0
1
Alveolata
1
0
0
1
China
0
2
1
3
Greenland
0
1
2
3
Argentina
0
1
1
2
USA
0
1
1
2
Hemichordata
0
1
1
2
Plantae
0
1
0
1
Baltica
0
1
0
1
Germany
0
1
0
1
Serbia
0
1
0
1
Cycadophyta
0
1
0
1
Carbon Group
0
1
0
1
Indonesia
0
1
0
1
Porifera
0
1
0
1
Pakistan
0
0
1
1
Latvia
0
0
1
1
Belgium
0
0
1
1
Pinophyta
0
0
1
1
Pnictogens
0
0
1
1
Mongolia
0
0
1
1
Denmark
0
0
1
1
Cnidaria
0
0
1
1
Bilateria
0
0
1
1
Rhodophyta
0
0
1
1
Amphibia
0
0
1
1
Aves
0
0
1
1
Laurentia
0
0
1
1
Medal table of the 2020 Fossilympics.
Results
1. Acritarchery (Sunday August 2nd) – Gold: Tasmanites (Australia) – 10 votes, Silver: Leiosphaeridia (Baltica) – 8 votes (with 2690 Google Scholar hits on countback); Bronze: Actinotodissus (Belgium) – 8 votes (with 98 Google Scholar hits on countback); 4th place: Shuiyousphaeridium (China) – 4 votes.
Please stand for the national anthem of Tasmanites acritarchery:
14. 444 Ma Hurdles (Sat August 8th) – Gold: Hirnantia (BRC) – 5 votes (with 1280 Google Scholar hits on countback); Silver: Normalograptus (HEM) – 5 votes (with 806 Google Scholar hits on countback). No bronze medal awarded as neither Spinachitina nor Natiscotecella received any votes.
Please stand for the dancing anthem of some kinkish brachiopods from a cwm:
Please stand for the evo-devo anthem of the whirling whip creatures:
26. 4 x 10 Ma Relay (Fri August 14th) – Gold: Team Gryphaea (FRA/GBR) – 8 votes; Silver: Team Dino-bird (GER/CHN) – 6 votes; Bronze: Team Cetacea (PAK) – 3 votes. Did not finish: Team Equid (USA) – 0 votes.
Please stand for the devilish anthem of fossil bivalves that often end up as rolling stones:
Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil
Congratulations to all our Fossilympic medallists, and thanks to everyone who took part in #Fossilympics20. I very much hope you can join us for #Fossilympics21 next summer!
And if you’ve not yet listened to The Fossil Song, now would be a very good time to do so!
This year’s inaugural Fossilympics is unsurprisingly experimental. The details of the dates, events, and competitors can be found below (subject to final ratification from the Intentional Obrution Committee).
The medal table will be a load of old nonsense, lumping together modern political entities, palaeocontinents, and taxonomic groups, but what the heck. It’s no worse than any of the metrics used by the UK Government to assess higher education. Abbreviations used are explained at the end of this post.
Saturday August 1st
– (AM) Acritarchery. Archery is one of the oldest sports, and commonly one of the earliest events at an Olympic Games. Acritarchery is an even older, earlier pursuit, requiring an equally steady hand (and even higher-powered eyesight) to challenge for the medals. 2020 competitors: Leiosphaeridia (BAL), Shuiyousphaeridium/Dictyosphaera plexus (CHN), Tasmanites (AUS), Actinotodissus (BEL).
(Form guide: Heda Agić’s introduction to acritarchs).
–(PM) Javelingula. This exciting field event pits four of the finest brachiopod clades in a pedicle-to-pedicle battle. For those brachiopods not having pedicles, winning the event is even tougher. 2020 competitors: Lingulids (BRC), Craniids (BRC), Rhynchonellids (BRC), Terebratulids (BRC).
– (AM) Cycling (road race). At the Fossilympics, the cycling road race is always held on an orbital route, over a distance of either 23k, 41k or 100k. Milankovitch of Serbia is the hot/cold favourite, but Croll and Adhémar should not be overlooked, and Yorkshire’s own Yoredale offers a measure of coal-powered competition. 2020 competitors: Milankovitch (SER), Croll (SCO), Yoredale (YOR), Adhémar (FRA).
– (PM) Swimming: 200 Ma. Having made it through a tough qualifying event in the late Triassic extinction, the swimmers in the Fossilympics 200 Ma must combine speed and stamina if they want to claim an Early Jurassic GSSP, let alone their place on the podium. 2020 competitors: Psiloceras planorbis (GBR) – watch it! This summer, set a biozone record that will be tough to beat! Sphenosuchus acutus (RSA) – just because it’s a crocodylomorph doesn’t mean it can swim! Ichthyosaurus anningae (GBR) – sweet Mary, this one’s got a chance! Gryphaeaarcuata (FRA) – ok, the adults are pretty disinclined to swimming, but marvel at their larval dispersal!
Monday August 3rd
– (AM) Gymnostics. Which of these gymnosperms are living fossils? Spoiler: none of them, as there’s no such thing! Which of them is in with a chance of a medal? Well, that depends on you… 2020 Competitors: Ginkgo (GKG), Wollemia (PIN), Araucaria (PIN), Cycas (CYC).
– (AM) Noderm Pentathlon. There aren’t five events here. There aren’t even five competitors. However, recent work by Deline et al. (2020) has shown there are four basic echinoderm bodyplans, so you just need to decide which of these extinct examples is your favourite. 2020 Competitors: Ctenocystoid homalozoans (ECH), diploporitans (ECH), stylophorans (ECH), edrioasteroids (ECH).
– (PM) Wavelifting. Which extinct reef-building group best bore the weight of the world on its shoulders? Cnidarians and molluscs are always tough competitors; let’s hope the putative sponges soak up the pressure and don’t end up on the porifery. 2020 Competitors: Archaeocyathids (PRF), tabulate corals (CNI), rudist bivalves (MOL), stromatoporoids (PRF). Oh, and whilst we’re at it, isn’t the Digital Atlas of Ancient Life a wonderful thing? And the PalaeoReefs Database too!
– (AM) Taxonomic Wastebasketball. Judging sporting events is always tricky, but this one is the most problematical of all. 2020 Competitors: Tullimonstrumgregarium (BIL) State fossil of Illinois, and I’ll annoy various people if I assess its medal chances, Acritarcha (PRB) surely the greatest taxonomic wastebasket of the fossil record? Thecodontia (REP) – socket to us, basal paraphyletic archosaurs! Gluteusminimus (PRB) it’s an arse to classify, but can this small but perfectly formed taxon muscle in on the big-hitters?
– (PM) 444 Ma Hurdles. The toughest event of them all, surviving the first of the Big Five mass extinctions, in conditions very cold, very hot, both, or neither. 2020 Competitors: Hirnantia (BRC, reigning champion); Normalograptus (HEM, a graptolite in the zone); Spinachitina (PRB, we don’t know what chitinozoans are, but this one’s surely a winner); Natiscotecella (BRY, sessile lophophorate it may be, but there are no loafers in this four).
Saturday August 8th
– (AM) Swimming – 100 Ma freestyle. The Cenomanian challengers (two vertebrate, two invertebrate) looking to chalk up a victory. 2020 Competitors: The Tethyan-derived belemnite Hibolites (MOL), The fast-moving ammonite Mantelliceras (MOL), The North African crocodilian Elosuchus (REP), The North American plesiosaur Plesiopleurodon (REP), which could win it by a short neck.
– (PM) 100 Ma. The Cenomanian is a prime time for these behemoths to battle for a Cretaceous crown. Which one will chalk up a victory? 2020 Competitors: Argentinosaurus (ARG), Spinosaurus (EGY), Giganotosaurus (ARG), Muttaburrasaurus (AUS).
Sunday August 9th
– (AM) Swimming – 375 Ma front crawl. Who can make it out onto land by the end of the event? And will they be disqualified if they do? 2020 Competitors: Ichthyostega (GRN), Panderichthys (LAT), Tiktaalik (CAN, has been training at high latitude), Acanthostega (GRN).
– (AM) Beach molleyball. It’s #MolluscMonday, and we need to know your most arenaceous shallow marine taxon of the Phylum Mollusca! 2020 Competitors: Polyplacophora (MOL), Gastropoda (MOL), Cephalopoda (MOL), Bivalvia (MOL).
– (PM) Polar vault. The fossil record of Antarctica has yielded some fabulous finds. But which one springs a surprise and gets your vote? And which one leaps to the top of the podium? 2020 competitors: the giant penguin Palaeeudyptes klekowskii (AVE); the giant paperclip ammonite Diplomoceras maximum (MOL); the helmeted frog Calyptocephalella sp. (AMP); the Permian porcupine megaspore Singhisporites hystrix (PLA).
Tuesday August 11th
– (AM) Triarthlon. Whether burrowing, crawling, or swimming is your strength, as long as you’ve got three lobes you’re in the medal hunt. 2020 Competitors: Paradoxides davidis (AVA), Agnostus pisiformis (BAL, could be disqualified taxonomically by the judges), Calymene blumenbachii (AVA), Olenellus thompsoni (LAU).
– (AM) 50 Ma Butterfly. A pretty small Eocene pool, and one of the competitors has already been dead 100 million years, but the fossil record of butterflies (and moths) is always sensitively dependent on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. 2020 Competitors: Protocoeliadeskristenseni (DEN: late Palaeocene, Fur Formation); Praepapilio colorado (USA: middle Eocene, Colorado); Prodryas persephone (USA: late Eocene, Colorado); Archaeolepis mane (GBR: Jurassic, Dorset). Might be quite hard for A. mane to win the butterfly, as it is very old, only has one wing, and is a moth, but one thing the Fossilympics can guarantee is surprises.
– (PM) Marellathon. More than 26 Ma of explosive competition in the Middle Cambrian, and the fieldwork looks very strong indeed. 2020 Competitors: Chengjiang (CHN), Burgess Shale (CAN), Wheeler Shale (USA), Sirius Passet (GRN).
Thursday August 13th
– (AM) Synchronized swimming. The final event in the pool, and things are bound to heat up as biostratigraphic usefulness gets put to the test, and synchronicity scrutinized. Sure to be fiercely contested by these most widespread of taxa. 2020 Competitors: Ammonites (MOL), Foraminifera (RHZ), Graptolites (HEM), Dinoflagellates (ALV).
– (PM) 4 x 10 Ma relay. The final event in the Fossilympics, and speed doesn’t matter here; it’s teamwork and survival that’s the key. Can your quartet pass on the evolutionary baton successfully enough to win the vote? 2020 Competitors: The gryphaeids (FRA/GBR: Gryphaeaarcuata [first 2 legs, even though it doesn’t have any], G. maccullochi, G. gigantea); The equidsHyracotherium–Mesohippus–Merychippus–Equus (USA, galloping across the line); the dino-birds (Archaeopteryx and friends (GER/CHN), flying round the bend); the cetaceans Pakicetus-Ambulocetus-Kutchicetus-Rodhocetus (PAK, making a swim for it).
Friday August 14th
– Final medal table and Closing ceremony.
NOTE. Normally, morning events begin at 0900 BST and run for 24 hours, and evening events begin at 1700 BST and run for 24 hours. However, these are subject to change.
ABBREVIATIONS: ALV – Alveolata, AMP – Amphibia; ARG – Argentina; ART – Arthropoda; AUS – Australia; AVA – Avalonia; AVE – Aves; BAL – Baltica; BEL – Belgium; BIL – Bilateria; BRC – Brachiopoda; BRY – Bryozoa; CAN – Canada; CHL – Chalcogens; CHN – China; CNI – Cnidaria; CRB – Carbon Group; CYA – Cyanobacteria; CYC – Cycadophyta; ECH – Echinodermata; EGY – Egypt; FRA – France; GBR – Great Britain & Northern Ireland; GER – Germany; GKG – Ginkgophyta; GRN – Greenland; HEM – Hemichordata; ICH – Ichnotaxa; INA – Indonesia; LAT – Latvia; LAU – Laurentia; MOL – Mollusca; MON – Mongolia; PAK – Pakistan; PIN – Pinophyta; PLA – Plantae; PNI – Pnictogens; PRB – Problematica; PRF – Porifera; PRT – Protista; REP – Reptilia; RHO – Rhodophyta; RHZ – Rhizaria; RSA – Republic of South Africa; RUS – Russia; SCO – Scotland; SER – Serbia; USA – United States of America; YOR – Yorkshire.
With neither the Yorkshire Fossil Festival nor the Olympic Games able to happen this year, and with my academic career coming to an end this month, I’ve decided I might as well do something daft to while away the summer weeks, and have created…the Fossilympics!
Starting on Saturday August 1st 2020, the Fossilympics will run on Twitter, through the Yorkshire Fossil Festival account (@yorksfossilfest). It will feature 13 days of top-strat competition, pitting Ginkgo against Wollemia, stable isotope against stable isotope, and Mesoproterozoic Problematicum against Mesoproterozoic Problematicum.
Ginkgo for gold?
Wollemia for the win?
Over the duration of competition, there will be separate events each day, one in the morning and one in the evening, from Acritarch-ery and Gymno-stics to the Charnio-discus and Decapod-athlon, giving extinct critters more than 20 chances for gold. Far more importantly, though, the #Fossilympics aims to promote as wide a variety of fossils as possible, from right across the biological spectrum, and from throughout geological time. It’s the taking part that counts, after all.
Each event will be run as a 24-hour Twitter poll. As these only allow 4 options, each event only has four competitors, meaning the lucky quartet have a 75% chance of getting a medal. What medal that is, though, will depend on how people decide to vote. And this is where the fossil knowledge of palaeo-Twitter comes into full force, as people – hopefully! – serve up support to enable the crowd to get behind their favourite fossil and cheer it on to gold!
Gold!
The full Fossilympic schedule can be found below, and I’ll be using the hashtag #Fossilympics20 to provide all the latest updates on Twitter. There might even be a medal table. And we’ll start with the Opening Ceremony, live from Yorkshire, next #FossilFriday, July 31st.
So, for the first vote, what should the #Fossilympics motto be? I’ve come up with two candidate slogans, and am abrogating responsibility to a public vote. Will it be “Tardius, durius, diutius” or “Animale, vegetabile, mineralis”?
Fossilympics 2020 schedule
Saturday August 1st – (AM) Acritarchery; (PM) Javelingula
Sunday August 2nd – (AM) Cycling (road race); (PM) Swimming – 200 Ma
Monday August 3rd – (AM) Gymnostics; (PM) Charniodiscus
Tuesday August 4th – (AM) Stable tennis; (PM) Rowing – single skulls
Wednesday August 5th – (AM) Noderm Pentathlon; (PM) Weightlifting
Thursday August 6th – (AM) Cycliing (track); (PM) Decapodathlon
Friday August 7th – (AM) Taxonomic Wastebasketball; (PM) 444 Ma Hurdles
Saturday August 8th – (AM) Swimming – 100 Ma freestyle; (PM) 100 Ma
Sunday August 9th – (AM) Swimming – 375 Ma front crawl; (PM) 1500 Ma
Monday August 10th – (AM) Beach molluscball; (PM) Pole vault
Tuesday August 11th – (AM) Triathlon; (PM) 800 Ma
Wednesday August 12th – (AM) 50 Ma Butterfly; (PM) Marellathon
Thursday August 13th – (AM) Synchronized swimming; (PM) 4 x 10 Ma relay
Friday August 14th – Final medal table and Closing ceremony.
The Fascinatingly Fortuitous Fossilization of Farts
There are people out there who don’t think palaeontology is astonishing, and they are quite wrong. To prove this, here is a 20 million-year-old cockroach fart, fossilized in amber:
Image from Poinar in Boucot & Poinar (2011) – (C) Routledge / CRC Press / Taylor & Francis.
The late lamented Dr WHO once told me “serendipity is looking for a needle in a haystack and finding the famer’s daughter.” I think my version is now “looking for an expert on fungal nodules and finding the world’s oldest fossilized fart.”
Over on Facebook, though, Leyla was swift to reply, and this cranked my excitement levels up to 11. “Termites eat dead plants,” she said. “To be able to digest dead plants, you need masses of gut microbiota. As the dead plants are digested by the gut microbiota, gases are produced. What you are seeing are lots of termites with clear fossilized farts…”
Sorry, hold your fossilized termites one moment, Dr Seyfullah. Did you just say FOSSILIZED FARTS?
“…as their gut microbiota kept breaking down food after the termites got stuck in the resin. Sometimes the termites ripped themselves a bit as they struggled in the sticky resin, so the gases escaped through any exit out of the termite.”
She added that, despite termites being ‘notoriously gassy’ not *all* the bubbles were of digestive origin (plenty could just be trapped air bubbles), but by that point I was miles away, in paroxysms of resinated guffery, searching for ‘fossilized farts‘ on Google.
Melissa Stewart’s Blasts of Gas then mentioned that Lynn Margulis had analysed the chemistry of fossil termite farts in 2002, so I had to dig out that scientific paper. ‘Spirochete and protist symbionts of a termite (Mastotermes electrodominicus) in Miocene amber’ by Wier et al. (2002) focusses primarily on the micro-organisms preserved in the termite’s gut. The Dominican amber fossilization is exceptional, extraordinary.
The authors do, however, mention that the amber termites are ‘invariably preserved with bubbles that emanate from thoracic or abdominal spiracles’ and that the bubbles contain ethylene, methane, and carbon dioxide.
“We propose that these gases were generated in large quantity by the unique hindgut microbial community, and exuded as the insect was immersed in the viscous resin” (Wier et al., 2002). I never doubted Leyla for a moment, of course, but it’s always handy to have a precedent: fossil farts from a 16-18 million year-old termite!
But yes, it’s only 16 to 18 million years old. The Baltic amber termites are at least 7 million years older, and more likely at least 16 million years older. The oldest fossil fungal farm? The oldest termite ? The oldest fossil fart? The possibilities are effervescent.
In conclusion, a Facebook reply to a Twitter post about an Instagram photo confirms that palaeontologists should definitely use social media, because the most amazing things can bubble up as a consequence. I just wish I’d know about fossil farts when I wrote this article for the Conversation.
Startlingly, this isn’t the Lego version of me.
*according to Kettunen et al. (2018), Baltic amber can be between 25 and 43 million years old, whilst Seyfullah et al. (2018) state that it is 34-48 million years old, so there’s quite a lot of potential variation in this figure. Such are the joys of biostratigraphy.
We immediately found ourselves thinking: “That would be cool with dinosaur feet!”
Then we thought “Actually, it would be cooler with correctly sized dinosaur feet that could produce some sort of trackway…”
So this is what we did…
1) Get together all the kit you might possibly need (different sized tubes for rolling, cardboard for making feet with, pens and pencils, tape measures, scissors, cocktail sticks/kebab skewers to attach the feet to the rolling tube).
All the kit you need to make a rolling dinosaur foot trackmaker!
2) Decide that the smallest tube needs to be an ornithopod, the medium-sized tube a theropod, and the largest tube a sauropod. Measure the diameters of the tubes to work out the ‘hip height’ of the dinosaur (the fully extended length of the leg when the foot hits the ground), and divide that number by 4 to come up with a proportional size for the foot.
Tube diameter (leg length) = 45 mm, so foot length = 11.25 mm
Tube diameter (leg length) = 94 mm, so foot length = 23.5 mm
2b) Then remember that sauropods aren’t quite the same as ornithopods or theropods, and consult a paper by Bernardo J. Gonzalez Riga to come up with some better-looking numbers. Decide to save the sauropod rolling trackway making for next time.
3) For a bit of ancestral accuracy, use the feather of an extant theropod to colour in the tiny feet of your rolling theropod trackmaker.
4) Cut out the feet, tape each of them onto a short bit of cocktail stick, then tape them to the inside of the rolling tube. Then realize they’re not thick enough to touch the ground when the tube rolls, so take them off again and add more card until they are. We did this for the ‘ornithopod’ on the small tube, though the challenge of cutting out small cardboard feet accurately means they are best described simply as tridactyl.
5) Find a reasonably large tray and cover with some kind of soft sediment. In this case, I used gardeners’ silver sand, but I’m sure flour or salt or sugar could work.
6) Roll the foot-bearing tube across the sand to see if it works, and – hey presto! – a dinosaur trackway. Yes, ok, it’s a one-legged dinosaur with an implausibly wide gait, but this is a work in progress!
A dinosaur trackway made in fine-grained sand by a rolling tube on my kitchen table. Fossilization potential: low.
7) To work out how fast the dinosaur was moving, measure the stride length. Here it was 150mm, give or take:
Trackway stride length, measured from heel to heel.
(I’m not aware of any evidence from the trace fossil record of tiny, wide dinosaurs hopping at high speed, but at least now we know what kind of trackway we’re looking for.)
Another – probably more genuinely ichnologically useful – thing is that, even with just two footprints made by the same cardboard foot in uniform dry sand, we can see that there is variation in track morphology. The second footprint is a much more accurate representation of the cardboard foot than the first one.
Footprint 1 of the tiny rolling dinosaur trackway.
Footprint 2 of the tiny rolling dinosaur trackway.
I will write this up as an activity sheet in due course, and get back on with chalking those dinosaur trackways, like I promised.
As I mentioned last time, there are plenty of Jurassic dinosaur footprints to be found on the Yorkshire Coast, but there are remarkably few dinosaur body fossils. Martin Whyte, Mike Romano and Will Watts summarized this in their 2010 paper, for which the key phrases are ‘scarce’ and ‘largely indeterminate’. In the splendid ‘Yorkshire’s Jurassic World‘ exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum there is a single sauropod vertebra, which can’t be assigned to a species, and is therefore known as Alan.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we can’t speculate reasonably about what might have made the big Burniston footprint. The evidence presented by Whyte et al. (2006) suggests strongly that the footprint is that of a large theropod, and Middle Jurassic rocks in Oxfordshire have yielded fossils of exactly that:
It seems a very good candidate, being of the right age and right dinosaur group. Interestingly, though, the calculated leg length we obtained from the Burniston footprint (2.2 metres, after Whyte et al‘s (2006) estimate of the foot having been 0.55m long, and Alexander’s (1976) equation of dinosaur hip height being four times its foot length) is longer than that known from fossils of Megalosaurus.
Megalosaurus was big, but its legs don’t appear to have been 2.2 metres long, even in the largest specimen (image from Wikimedia Commons).
So, is Megalosaurus not big enough? Did Yorkshire have a mega-Megalosaurus, or is there a possibility our calculations might be awry? Could the foot length obtained from the big Burniston footprint be an over-estimate?
To investigate this further, we need to stay in Oxfordshire, and combine the body fossils of Megalosaurus with the trace fossils of Ardley Quarry, and the research of Julia Day and colleagues, published in 2002 and 2004. And to really annoy you all, I’m going to save that for Chalking With Dinosaurs, part 5, when we can also work out how fast a large Middle Jurassic theropod dinosaur might have been able to run…
On Saturday May 9th 2020, as promised, I chalked a load of dinosaur footprints onto my driveway.
Two cardboard cut-outs of Yorkshire dinosaur footprints, and some chalk.
My video below explains what I did, and what a single footprint can tell us about the tracemaker. WARNING: this video features some low-quality singing.
If you want to go chalking with dinosaurs, here’s my checklist:
1. Choose a footprint you want to chalk. I decided to start with the big Burniston footprint described by Martin Whyte and colleagues in 2006. However, you might want to chalk a completely different dinosaur footprint, or your own footprint, or invent the footprint of a creature even more fantastical than a dinosaur.
2. Draw the footprint onto a piece of card and cut it out, to keep your footprint chalk drawings consistent.
My cardboard version of the big Burniston footprint (Whyte et al. 2006), with the interpreted size of the dinosaur foot highlighted, and my left foot shown for scale.
3. Get your chalks, work out where you want your footprint to go, and start drawing. If you don’t have a driveway, an alleyway or a yard will do just as well. If you don’t have outdoor space for chalking, draw the footprints onto paper indoors.
4. Measure the footprint. Is it the same size as the tracemaker’s foot? This can be quite hard to determine from a trace fossil, but the answer is often no. Martin Whyte and colleagues decided that, although the large Burniston footprint was 0.61m long by 0.49m wide, the squidgification* around the edges of the footprint suggested that the dinosaur foot itself was probably 0.55m long by 0.40m wide (hence my annnotation in the figure above).
*technical term
5. From the size of the tracemaker’s foot, you can then estimate the size of its leg. How? Well, take some measurements of your own leg. My foot is 0.265m long, and my hip height is 0.91m, so that gives a ratio of hip height (h) to FL (Foot Length) as follows:
h = 3.43FL
If that ratio was true for the Burniston dinosaur, its foot length of 0.55m would yield a hip height of 1.89m (which is taller than me!).
A Tyrannosaurus rex and a 1.8m tall human (image from Wikimedia Commons). I am 1.8m tall.
6. However, I am not a dinosaur. It is much better to use measurements made from dinosaur skeletons. R. McNeill Alexander did exactly this in the 1970s and came up with a slightly different equation for dinosaurs:
h = 4FL
That would make the hip height of the big Burniston tracemaker 2.2 metres, which is taller than most humans.
7. Unsurprisingly, then, the big Burniston footprint was made by a big beast, but what kind of beast exactly? The three-toed (tridactyl) print with a V-shaped heel and distinct claw marks strongly suggests it was a theropod (hence the title of Whyte and colleagues’ 2006 paper). However, there are no Burniston bones to confirm this, and no skeletons of Middle Jurassic theropods are known from Yorkshire. So what kind of theropod was it?
Examples of some of the largest theropod dinosaurs (image from Wikimedia Commons).
For that, you’ll have to wait for Chalking With Dinosaurs, part 4!
