First Adult T. rex Trackway Found in North Dakota

The fossil trail discovered near Marmarth is not a skeleton, but a moment of movement preserved in stone. In 2025, researchers documented four huge footprints in North Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation and identified them as the first known trackway attributed to an adult Tyrannosaurus rex. The prints date to roughly 66.5 million years ago, near the end of the Cretaceous Period. 35

What the team found

The trackway extends about 23 feet (7 meters) and contains four three-toed prints: two left and two right. Each footprint is roughly 3 feet (about 1 meter) long. 311

The team attributes the trail to an adult T. rex based on the tracks’ exceptional size and narrow toe impressions, as well as their age, location, and the presence of tyrannosaur fossils in the surrounding region. That is a strong identification, but tracks preserve less anatomical information than bones, so the attribution is best understood as the researchers’ evidence-based conclusion rather than absolute proof. 45

Why a trackway is unusually valuable

Single dinosaur footprints have been found before. A sequence from one animal is different: it preserves successive steps, allowing researchers to examine stride and direction of travel. The study was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 35

That makes the North Dakota trail a rare behavioral record of a fully grown tyrannosaur. Rather than inferring locomotion only from limb bones, researchers can evaluate how this individual moved across an ancient muddy surface. 519

It appears to show a walking T. rex, not a sprint

The spacing of the prints indicates a stride of about 13 feet (4 meters). From that measurement, researchers estimated a speed of approximately 3.5 to 4.5 mph—a brisk human walking pace. 16

The result should not be treated as a measure of the species’ maximum speed. It describes the pace indicated by this particular short trail, and weathering of the prints complicates precise measurement. The available evidence is consistent with an adult T. rex walking rather than running when it crossed this patch of ground. 116

Discovery and research methods

Kent Hups, a Northglenn High School teacher and Denver Museum of Nature & Science volunteer, found the site in 2025 while volunteering on a dig near Marmarth. The locality is on federal land administered by the U.S. Forest Service. 220

Researchers from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science worked with Liverpool John Moores University in England. The team used high-resolution 3D surface scanning to document the track-bearing rock and analyze the prints. 313

Recovery and museum plans

Reports said three of the four footprints were expected to be recovered by helicopter and taken to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. 25

The planned recovery reflects the site’s logistical and scientific challenges. The remote badlands setting makes conventional transport difficult, while the trackway’s preservation is unusual: it is described as three-dimensional and “rock-on-rock,” rather than a simple impression in softer sediment. That makes the material harder to excavate than a fossil bone. 26

The provided reporting does not confirm that recovery has been completed or give a final public-display date. What is already clear is the scientific value of the site: four steps provide a direct, rare glimpse of a giant predator moving across the latest-Cretaceous landscape. 35