Since he was a toddler, Scott Persons wanted to be a paleontologist. At least that’s what he’s been told by those who knew him before his own memories took form. As he aged, his interest in the field didn’t dwindle. In fact, it intensified.
Now, a PhD student at the Univ. of Alberta, Persons recently published a paper in Cretaceous Research detailing a rare tyrannosaur trackway found in Wyoming. The site holds unique significance for Persons, as it was the place where his ambition to be a paleontologist was solidified.
“My poor parents—who had lived with this dinosaur-obsessed child for years—were concerned that paleontology might not be for me,” Persons said in an interview with R&D Magazine. “They wanted to make sure that this was something that I was really serious about pursuing.”
So Persons’ parents arranged for the then 13-year-old to participate in a number of digs conducted by Wyoming’s Glenrock Paleon Museum. There, Persons found a display hall filled with fossils from dinosaurs unearthed from the local vicinity. In the museum’s preparation lab, elderly women—fondly referred to as Bone Biddies—dutifully cleaned fossils. Persons described the group as members from the Glenrock community, who formed the equivalent of a sewing circle, but around cleaning and prepping bones for museum display.
Persons said his parents hoped that after toiling in the hot Wyoming sun and hauling overburden, he’d trade in his paleontological dreams for a more lucrative career path.
“But, of course, the plan backfired,” Persons said. “They got me out there and I absolutely fell in love with the work and with the place.”
While there, Persons was shown the fossil tracks of a tyrannosaur. “It really is such a phenomenal trackway,” he said. “The first track is so well-preserved you can see the individual pads—the really fleshy pads—on the tyrannosaur’s foot.”
Tyrannosaur trackways are particularly rare, and only one other has been described in recent years. “The Paleon knew that they really had something special there…but their setup is towards working in the field, getting the stuff prepared, and putting it out there so their museum has something to show off,” said Persons.
But Persons saw an opportunity to bring the discovery to the scientific community’s attention, and perhaps put the museum on the map.
Usually, tyrannosaur footprints are isolated. “As the apex predator in the environment, they were very, very rare animals,” Persons said. “You can only have so many top carnivores. That’s the way the ecology of it works out.”
A series of footprints allows scientists to perform some math and discover more about a prehistoric creature’s locomotion. Persons’ tyrannosaur—when it made the tracks—was moving between 4.5 and 8 km/h, a speed Persons described as a “brisk walk.” However, that brisk walk was still enough to outpace the herbivores alive during that time.
Visitors to the Glenrock Paleon Museum can still view the tracks out in the field. Casts of the footprints are also on display inside the museum.
