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The tracks were found at site that was once a muddy river plain. Lida Xing et al.
Smithsonian Magazine has a post about fossil tracks of one of the largest known raptors. The tracks were found on what was once a muddy river plain in what is now southwestern China. The dinosaur, named Fujianipus (meaning “foot of Fujian”) yingliangi, lived about 96 million years ago during the middle Cretaceous Period. The footprints were discovered during the winter of 2020 at a locality referred to as the Longxiang tracksite. The site measures nearly 17,000 square feet and contains more than 240 identifiable footprints. The discovery was announced in a paper in the journal iScience.
“You know a raptor track when you see it,” Lida Xing, a Chinese paleontologist who led the project, says in a statement, according to LiveNOW from FOX’s Stephanie Weaver. “But these tracks are different from any that have ever been found.”
The series of five prints, each measuring about 14 inches long, indicates the raptor grew to an approximate length of 16 feet and had a hip height of six feet. That makes Fujianipus much larger than most velociraptors, which were often no more than six feet in length and weighed less than 100 pounds.
Despite their massive size, the tracks have one telltale trait of a raptor footprint: two toes.
