Dinosaur Footprint

In the 1930's, an original dinosaur track from the main track layer in the Paluxy riverbed in what is now Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose was used to define a distinct form of dinosaur footprint. Excavated in 1933 and assigned the ichnospecies name Eubrontes glenrosensis, it was later described in 1935 by Ellis W. Shuler, SMU's first geology professor. The footprint was made by a three-toed, bipedal, meat-eating dinosaur, most likely the theropod Acrocanthosaurus, whose skeletal remains are found mostly in Texas and Oklahoma. Dinosaur Valley State Park preserves the ancient shoreline of a 113-million-year-old sea and is renowned for some of the best preserved dinosaur footprints in the world.

Glen Rose, Texas · United States