High school science teacher discovers rare T. Rex tracks: 'A real pivotal moment'
Kent Hups said he couldn't contain his excitement when he came across several giant three-toed track prints that appeared to be T. Rex footprints in a North Dakota land formation last year.
"I immediately started jumping up and down and hooting and hollering," Hups, a high school science teacher and research associate at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, told ABC News.
Hups discovered four footprints, each about 3 feet long, on a 23-foot trackway that researchers later determined originated from a T. Rex, according to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
This is the first time scientists have ever discovered a T. Rex trackway, or a sequence of footprints, giving researchers insight into how the dinosaur moved through the landscape, according to the museum.
Researchers estimate the tracks are about 66.5 million years old, according to the findings published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology on Sept. 8.
Researchers identified a T. Rex as the most likely trackmaker due to the footprints' exceptionally large size, the narrow toes and the abundance of T. Rex fossils found in the surrounding area, according to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
The tracks were found in Hell Creek Formation, the paper said, which is federal land administered by the U.S. Forest Service and is known for its high volume of fossils.
Hups said he was "prospecting," or searching for interesting discoveries in the environment, when he came across the footprints.
Hups discovered the tracks after descending from rugged terrain in a very remote area of the formation, he said.
"It was like a real pivotal moment," Hups said. "I didn't sleep very much that night. I was so excited when we got back. ... It's going to be one of those days that I'll never forget."
The footprints were found about 13 feet apart, allowing the researchers to roughly estimate the T. Rex was moving at about 3.5 to 4.5 miles per hour, equivalent to a brisk human walking pace, according to the museum.
"Bones tell us an enormous amount about these animals, but footprints capture a moment of behavior," Tyler Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, stated in a museum press release. "With a trackway, we can actually follow an animal as it moved across the landscape. That is incredibly rare for T. rex."
Scientists used high-resolution 3D surface scanning to create physical reproductions of the tracks, allowing them to examine the footprints in detail, according to the museum.
Hups said he has enjoyed sharing the discovery with his students in his geology classes and paleontology club.
"They're loving it," Hups said of his students.
"This should be like kind of a lesson to everybody. ... You got to go out and look for stuff," Hups said.
