Volunteer Finds First Adult T. rex Trackway With 4 Footprints in North Dakota

Q: What hidden secrets about the T. rex's daily life did an amateur fossil hunter accidentally uncover in the North Dakota badlands?

An amateur fossil hunter uncovered a rare snapshot of an adult T. rex’s everyday movement: it was calmly walking across a muddy Late Cretaceous landscape in what is now North Dakota. The key find was the first known adult T. rex trackway, discovered by high school teacher and longtime fossil hunter Kent Hups in the Hell Creek Formation near Marmarth. What he spotted as an odd raised shape turned out to be part of a sequence of four confirmed footprints, each nearly 3 feet long, stretching about 23 feet. Researchers say the size, narrow three-toed shape and 13-foot stride strongly indicate a full-grown T. rex. What this reveals is behavior that bones cannot show. From the spacing and layout of the prints, scientists estimate the animal was moving at only about 3.5 to 4.5 miles per hour, roughly a brisk human walking pace. That suggests the predator was not charging or hunting at full speed, but simply moving through its environment at a leisurely pace. The trackway also offers clues to biomechanics and foot anatomy, and possibly skin and pad structure, because footprints preserve how the foot actually met the ground. Researchers documented the site with high-resolution 3D scans and replicas before planning excavation. In short, Hups accidentally revealed not just that T. rex lived there, but how one adult actually walked across the landscape 66.5 million years ago—a fleeting moment of daily life preserved in stone.

3 articles · Updated · CBS New York · Sep 10

Four connected footprints found in 2025 near Marmarth, North Dakota, mark the first known trackway from a full-grown T. rex, according to a new Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology paper.
The 23-foot trackway gives researchers a rare view of behavior rather than anatomy, letting them estimate the more than 7-ton animal walked about 3.5 to 4.5 mph.
Kent Hups — a high school teacher volunteering on a Denver Museum dig — spotted the tracks on U.S. Forest Service land through what researchers described as careful observation.
Only two isolated adult T. rex footprints had previously been confirmed worldwide, in New Mexico and Montana, making this 66.5-million-year-old path one of the last known walks before the end-Cretaceous extinction.

Sources

CBS New York19h ago

First Adult T. rex Trackway Discovered in North Dakota by Volunteer Kent Hups

IFLScience1d ago

World's First Adult T. Rex Trackway With 4-Meter Stride Discovered By High School Teacher | IFLScience

Taylor & Francis Newsroom1d ago

First-ever trackway of adult T. rex discovered - Taylor & Francis Newsroom

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What hidden secrets about the T. rex's daily life did an amateur fossil hunter accidentally uncover in the North Dakota badlands?

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