Four T. rex footprints have survived for 66.5 million years: the first trackway of an adult Tyrannosaurus has been discovered

In North Dakota, scientists have described four enormous three-toed footprints dating back some 66.5 million years. The researchers believe they were most likely left by an adult Tyrannosaurus rex — and this is the first known trackway of this size to be attributed specifically to an adult T. rex.

The trackway has enabled scientists to estimate how the animal moved: the stride length between footprints was approximately 4 metres, and its speed was around 5.6–7.2 km/h, which is roughly the pace of a brisk human walk.

Details

The trackway was discovered in 2025 near the town of Marmart in south-western North Dakota, in rocks of the Hell Creek Formation. It stretches for approximately 7 metres and comprises two impressions of the left foot and two of the right. Each footprint is about 90 centimetres long.

A team led by Peter Falkingham of Liverpool John Moores University, together with researchers from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, carried out a detailed 3D scan of the surface. The digital model enabled even those team members who were not at the site of the discovery to analyse the shape and spacing of the tracks.

The authors do not claim that the footprints have been definitively proven to belong to a T. rex. They identify it as the most likely owner due to the exceptional size of the prints, the relatively narrow shape of the toes, and the fact that T. rex bones are well known from the same formation. The very title of the article cautiously refers to a trackway ‘probably attributable’ to an adult Tyrannosaurus.

The tracks are heavily weathered, so the speed calculation is approximate. Nevertheless, four consecutive footprints provide more information about movement than a single track: it is possible to estimate stride length, direction and pace.

Why this is important

Bones reveal the structure of a dinosaur’s body, but a trackway captures a specific instance of behaviour. In this case, it allows us to see not a theoretical reconstruction, but the actual sequence of steps taken by a large predator during the Late Cretaceous period.

However, the discovery does not prove that all adult T. rex typically walked at precisely this speed. Only four footprints from a single passage have survived, and the tracks themselves are heavily eroded. Therefore, the findings primarily provide a rare point of reference for models of Tyrannosaurus rex gait and speed, rather than a universal characteristic of the species.

There are plans to extract three of the tracks from the rock and transport them to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for further study and display.

Source

Peter L. Falkingham, Kent M. Hups, Evan M. Tamez-Galvan, Antoine D. Bercovici, Tyler R. Lyson. A large tridactyl trackway from the Upper Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of North Dakota, likely attributable to an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, 2026. DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2026.2706201.

Official press release from Taylor & Francis: First-ever trackway of an adult T. rex discovered.