Did dinosaurs dance to woo their desired mates just like humans? A team of scientists from the University of Colorado Denver just released a new study that reveals fossilized foot scrapes left by dinosaurs and points to them as evidence that they danced to impress members of the opposite sex. The findings further support the idea that ancient dinosaurs shared similar behaviors to modern birds.
"Most or perhaps all of the behaviors present in birds today originated in nonbird dinosaurs," Darren Naish, who participated in the research, said in a press release. "If these scrape marks are really what the authors say they are, this study is pretty compelling support for that contention."
The team uncovered the scrape marks at four sites in Colorado that all contained sediments stemming from the Dakota Sandstone, a geological formation that was created during the Cretaceous period. The largest of the sites, which is located in western Colorado, contained approximately 60 scrapes that measured 50 meters long and 15 meters wide.
"Birds seem to get in a frenzy of prenuptial, premating activity," said Martin Lockley, who led the team of researchers and believes that "bird literature actually speaks about peaks of emotional activity. It seems that [carnivorous] dinosaurs did the same."
The footprints are believed to stem from the meat-eating dinosaur Acrocanthosaurus, which roamed the Earth approximately 110 million years ago and was one of the largest carnivores in the proximity at the time, weighing as much as six metric tons.
The team considered other explanations for the foot scrapes during their research, such as foraging for food and water, but ultimately rejected them in favor of the dancing hypothesis.
The findings were published in the Jan. 7 issue of Scientific Reports.
