Ceratosaurus and Dinosaur Tracks

Ceratosaurus

This past weekend I went to a family baptism down in Kanab Utah.   My brother in law took us up to the top of a bluff called Lamb's Point, to see early Jurassic dinosaur tracks.  It was an amazing experience, although the hike up was really quite difficult.  It took overnight for my crummy heart to calm down.  I'm fine now. ANYWAY, it was sooooo cool to see those tracks up there on the bluff, still in the wild.

Me with one of the Dinosaur Tracks

These tracks are from a 3 toed dinosaur.... almost certainly a Theropod.   Theropods are the carnivorous or meat eating dinosaurs.   The rock is called the Navajo Sandstone formation.   We saw several ripple marks on rocks.  Ripple marks are made when sand is in the bottom of a moving stream of water.   So, this indicated that the dinosaurs were walking in water and left tracks.  There are two distinct sets of tracks and the animals appeared to be of different size.   So this may have been a male and female on the prowl, waling through  a shallow creek.  By the way, in modern birds of prey (bird raptors)  the females are bigger than the males...so we can infer that the female Theropod dinosaurs were larger than the males.

Ripple Marks from a large flat boulder that fell from the top of Lamb's Point

Pair of Smaller Theropod Dino Tracks

Larger Theropod Dino Track from Lamb's Point

Dino Track with Child's Hand

Dino Track with Lanyard for Sizing

The lanyard is included in the picture to help 

determine actual size.  Based on the above picture, 

this track is 14 inches long.  

This set of tracks are from the early Jurassic Period, so we have a problem figuring out what species of dinosaur made the tracks.  Only a handful of dinosaurs have been found in the Navajo Sandstone formation.   Only ONE of these is a Theropod, and it was only about the size of a goose.  The dinosaurs that made these tracks were at least 15-20 feet long.  They match the size of a known Jurassic dinosaur called Ceratosaurus.  However, Ceratosaurus was from the Late Jurassic Period.  What these tracks tell us is that fairly large Theropods lived in North America during the Early Jurassic.  The Ceratosaurus is the closest animal in size, although Ceratosaurus lived later than these tracks by millions of years.  It is possible that this animal that made the tracks was an ancestor to Ceratosaurs, or Allosaurus, or Torvosaurus.  They were all larger Theropod dinosaurs of the Late Jurassic Period.   So, I drew the Ceratosaurus for today's blog because there is no known dinosaur to fit the bill from the correct time period...but Ceratosaurus comes as close as I can get.

Ceratosaurus was about 18 feet (5.5 m) long.  It was a predator that had horns.  Two small eyebrow horns and a larger nose horn.  Their weapon was not the horns.  It is speculated that perhaps the horns were for impressing the members of the opposite sex.  So, MAYBE they were used when males fought for the mates, but that seems unlikely.  In modern birds of prey the raptors usually mate for life.  So the males do not fight over the females.  Also, Ceratosaurs had a skull with bones that were too thin to play the head bashing game.  Ceratosaurs were replaced or out-competed by Allosaurus.
Ceratosaurs went extinct, they did NOT evolve into birds...so it is thought that Ceratosaurs did NOT have feathers like the much smaller and later Velociraptor.

Male Velociraptor.   .    . all fluffed out for displaying feathers to Females

By the way, I would say that since modern birds are often very colorful, this male Velociraptor could be colored with bright head feathers and / or bright tail feathers.   OR bright feathers everywhere.   It is up to you.  Remember that Velociraptor was only about 6 feet long and 4 feet tall.  It was still a deadly desert predator...and it did probably hunt in packs.