World's largest deinonychosaur tracks discovered in China's Fujian

An aerial drone photo taken on Nov. 10, 2020 shows a dinosaur tracksite discovered in Lincheng Town, Longyan City, southeast China's Fujian Province. (Xinhua)

BEIJING, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Scientists have discovered large two-toed tracks in Lincheng Town, Fujian Province, east China, which belong to deinonychosaurs, the scientist team said Monday.

At least eight types of dinosaur tracks have been found over the years at the Longxiang tracksite by scientists and experts from China University of Geosciences and Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum, 12 of which are didactyl deinonychosaur tracks that fall into two morphologies.

Among the 12 two-toed fossil tracks, five large tracks measuring 36.4 cm in length and 16.9 cm in width, on average, led researchers to establish a new dinosaur taxon: Fujianipus yingliangi.

Based on relative toe-proportions, Fujianipus is a probable troodontid.

"These are currently the largest deinonychosaur tracks found in China and beyond," said Xing Lida, an associate professor at China University of Geosciences, adding that based on the size of the tracks, it is estimatied that Fujianipus was at least 5 meters long, with a hip height of nearly 2 meters.

"The Longxian tracksite is the best-preserved, largest area, and most diverse Late Cretaceous dinosaur tracksite discovered in China to date," said Niu Kecheng, curator of Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum.

The discovery of the Fujianipus yingliangi greatly expands the size range of deinonychosaur tracks, which is of great significance for the study of the Late Cretaceous dinosaurs in China, Niu added.

The discovery was recently published in the international journal iScience.