PROBABLE TYRANNOSAURID FOOTPRINT FROM THE LATE CRETACEOUS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Although tyrannosaurids are reasonably common components of Late Cretaceous dinosaur skeletal faunas from western North America and eastern Asia, fossil footprints attributable to these large carnivores are much less abundant. The Late Cretaceous Wapiti Formation of Alberta and British Columbia has yielded a dinosaur assemblage comprising ceratopsids (including specimens from bonebeds), hadrosaurids, dromaeosaurids, troodontids, and ornithomimids, and tyrannosaurid material assigned to Albertosaurus, along with footprints attributed to ornithopods, ankylosaurs, and now a tyrannosaurid. The footprint here described is from an exposure along the Redwillow Forest Service Road in northeastern British Columbia. The isolated print is moderately well preserved, and appears to be a left. It is about 57 cm in both length and maximum width. Footprints attributed to theropods typically are longer than broad, suggesting the possibility that the Wapiti Fm print was in fact made by an ornithopod. However, preserved terminal portions of digital impressions in the new print are less broad than expected for ornithopod (hadrosaurid) footprints of this size, and the digit III impression preserves a faint sigmoid curvature typical of large theropod footprints. Consequently we identify the trackmaker as a large theropod, most likely a tyrannosaurid.