First-ever adult T. rex trackway found in North Dakota

Paleontologists have unearthed the inaugural full-grown Tyrannosaurus rex trackway in North Dakota, located near the Montana border within the region's badlands. This groundbreaking discovery, documented in a recent Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology paper, marks a significant advancement in understanding the behavior of these prehistoric creatures.

Prior to this revelation, only two isolated adult T. rex footprints had been confirmed globally, both in New Mexico and Montana, without showcasing the animal's movement dynamics.

The discovery was made in 2025 by Kent Hups, a high school teacher and amateur fossil enthusiast, who stumbled upon the trackway during a volunteer assignment on Dr. Tyler Lyson's excavation site. Dr. Lyson, senior curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, highlighted the rarity of capturing T. rex movement in footprints, emphasizing how a trackway provides a direct glimpse into the animal's behavior during a specific moment.

The trackway itself is approximately 23 feet long, comprising four three-toed impressions, each roughly 3 feet in length. Researchers utilized the spacing between these prints to estimate the T. rex's walking speed, which was roughly between 3.5 to 4.5 mph, despite the dinosaur's weight exceeding seven tons. The determination of the tracks' origin to T. rex was based on their size, shape, and the abundance of tyrannosaur bones in the surrounding rock, including a juvenile specimen known as "Teen Rex," discovered in the same area in 2022 by three boys on a family hike.

Further analysis was conducted using 3D scanning technology by researchers from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and lead author Peter Falkingham from Liverpool John Moores University in England conducted the paper's analysis without a physical visit to North Dakota. The discovered footprints are set to be airlifted to the Denver Museum this fall, with three of the four prints to be preserved there.

These tracks provide invaluable insights into the final walks of T. rexes, a few million years before the asteroid impact led to their extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period.