Jurassic Park’s T. rex image challenged? Colorado teacher’s discovery of 66.5-million-year-old footprints suggests dinosaur may have strolled rather than sprinted

A routine fossil hunt in North Dakota led to an extraordinary discovery after a Colorado high school teacher noticed a wedge-shaped rock formation that appeared to bear three enormous toes. What initially looked like an odd geological feature turned out to be part of a rare sequence of dinosaur footprints — likely left by an adult Tyrannosaurus rex around 66.5 million years ago.

The study, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology on September 8, 2026, documents four fossilised T. rex tracks found in the Hell Creek Formation

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Kent Hups, a teacher at Northglenn High School in Colorado and an experienced amateur fossil hunter, spotted the unusual structure while volunteering at an excavation. He brought it to the attention of palaeontologist Tyler Lyson, who was leading the dig.

Lyson was initially cautious about identifying the mark as a T. rex footprint. A single unusual impression was not enough to establish what had made it.

That changed as the team excavated the area further. Researchers uncovered four three-toed footprints forming a trackway that stretched for about 7 metres, or 23 feet.

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Four footprints reveal how T. rex moved

While isolated adult T. rex footprints have been documented previously, a sequence of tracks offers scientists something much more valuable: evidence of movement.

The newly identified trackway contains two left and two right footprints. Their arrangement and spacing allow researchers to examine the dinosaur's stride and estimate how quickly it was travelling.

The T. rex is estimated to have been moving at around 1.5 to 2 metres per second, equivalent to approximately 3.4 to 4.5 miles per hour. That is closer to the pace of a brisk human walk than the high-speed sprint often associated with the dinosaur in popular films.

Rock preserved evidence of a prehistoric walk

The tracks were preserved in fine-grained sandstone concretions cemented by calcium carbonate. Over time, the hardened material became more resistant to erosion than the surrounding rock, helping preserve the impressions.

The fossilised surfaces are heavily fractured, meaning some details of the dinosaur's foot have been lost. However, the tracks' large size, narrow three-toed form, age and location point to an adult T. rex as the most likely trackmaker. The presence of nearby T. rex fossils provides further supporting evidence.

Why the trackway matters

The discovery cannot reveal everything about the life or behaviour of T. rex, but it provides a type of evidence that skeletal fossils cannot: a direct record of the animal moving across an ancient landscape.

Researchers have also created high-resolution 3D scans of the trackway, preserving the discovery digitally for future study. Three of the fossilised tracks are expected to be recovered and transferred to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

The discovery also highlights the role of observation in scientific research. Hups' decision to take a closer look at an unusual rock ultimately helped uncover evidence of a T. rex walking across what is now North Dakota roughly 66.5 million years ago. As he tells his students, science can begin with something as simple as curiosity — and the willingness to stop and look more closely.