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Researchers discover a ‘prehistoric motorway’ for dinosaurs in Bolivia
Palaeontologists have made an extraordinary discovery in Bolivia’s Torotoro National Park: more than 18,000 fossilised dinosaur tracks in a small area provide detailed insights into the behaviour of these prehistoric creatures. The tracks document not only walking, but also running, swimming and even changes of direction, offering a unique window into a world that disappeared long ago.
Largest footprint site in the world
An international research team has mapped the world’s largest known collection of dinosaur footprints in the Carreras Pampa region. The scientists identified a total of over 18,000 tracks covering an area of around 7,485 square metres. Their age is estimated at between 66 and 101 million years, which places them in the late Cretaceous period.
The findings were published in the scientific journal PLOS One and significantly exceed all previously known sites. A total of 16,600 footprints alone come from theropods – bipedal, mostly carnivorous dinosaurs with characteristic three-toed feet.
Tips for swimming in shallow water
In addition to classic footprints, the site yielded something special: 1,378 impressions that can be clearly interpreted as swimming tracks. They show how individual dinosaurs paddled through shallow water. The middle toe in particular pressed deep into the mud, while the other toes and the heel barely touched the ground.
‘Everywhere you look at this rock layer, you see dinosaur tracks,’ says study co-author Jeremy McLarty of Southwestern Adventist University in Texas. For researchers, this is rare evidence of the behaviour of living animals – not just their anatomy.
A dinosaur highway on the lakeshore
The alignment of the tracks indicates a clear structure: most of the footprints run either in a north-westerly or south-easterly direction. For scientists, this is a strong indication that the dinosaurs were travelling along a former shoreline.
Around 100 million years ago, this location was probably the shore of a shallow freshwater lake. Parallel ripple marks in the rock, i.e. rippled structures created by water movement, support this assumption. ‘Footprints don’t move,’ emphasises McLarty. ‘Anyone visiting Carreras Pampa is standing exactly where a dinosaur once walked.’
The footprints reveal an astonishing variety of sizes. Some measure less than ten centimetres, a rarity in palaeontology. Whether they come from very small species or from young animals of larger dinosaurs is still unclear.
At the other end of the spectrum are footprints over 30 centimetres long, which can probably be attributed to medium-sized theropods such as Allosaurus or Dilophosaurus. According to the researchers’ calculations, the hip height of most animals was between about 65 and 125 centimetres.
Fossil snapshots of movement and behaviour
The diversity of the preserved movement patterns is particularly valuable. Scientists found evidence of walking, running, abrupt braking and sharp turns. In some cases, drag marks from dinosaur tails can even be seen – an extremely rare find.
Such tracks provide information that bones alone cannot reveal. They show how dinosaurs actually moved in their environment and interacted with each other.
The footprints owe their exceptional preservation to favourable geological conditions. The sediment at that time consisted of a mixture of about 65 percent calcium carbonate and 35 percent fine silicates. The ground was soft enough to absorb deep impressions, but at the same time stable enough not to destroy them immediately.
Shortly afterwards, the surface was covered by further layers of sediment and thus preserved for millions of years. It was only erosion that exposed the tracks again.
Why footprints tell us more than bones
‘Traces are direct evidence of movement, soft tissues and the environment,’ explains palaeobiologist Peter Falkingham from Liverpool John Moores University. Unlike isolated skeletons, they provide an immediate insight into the lives of animals. ‘Such sites bring lost ecosystems to life in a way that bones alone cannot.’
With Carreras Pampa, Bolivia is cementing its reputation as one of the world’s most important countries for dinosaur tracks. The second largest known site, Cal Orck’o near Sucre, with around 14,000 prints, is located there, spectacularly visible on an almost vertical rock face in an active quarry.
The new discovery could now become the most important reference point for research into dinosaur movements worldwide, a veritable ‘prehistoric motorway’ that documents the behaviour of dinosaurs more accurately than almost any other place on Earth.
- Researchers discover a ‘prehistoric motorway’ for dinosaurs in Bolivia - 6. December 2025
- Long-standing dispute settled: Spinosaurus was a true aquatic predator - 5. December 2025
- Palaeontology: Schoolboy in the USA discovers 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil - 4. December 2025
