Dinosaurs Possibly Split Into Cliques to Survive

Plant-eating dinosaurs of different species may have herded together to escape meat eaters, according to an analysis of 163-million-year-old dinosaur footprints on a muddy coastal plain in England.

In Friday’s issue of Science, British researchers said that 40 tracks of dinosaur footprints hint at a life-and-death struggle between prey and hunter.

The tracks suggest that large plant eaters of different types--some as long as 90 feet and weighing 10 tons or more--walked together on an open tidal plain, perhaps fleeing for their lives.

On a nearby track, the researchers also found the footprints of the smaller, faster megalosaurus, a toothy meat eater that may have been more than 60 feet long. The tracks were going the same direction at about the same time as the plant eaters.

The tracks of the megalosaurs suggest that they were tracking the plant eaters, paleontologist Julia Day of the University of Cambridge said.