ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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Footprints can be pretty useful.

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They can be just the clue a detective needs to solve the case... [Magnifying glass showing tracks in sand]

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A great way for animal trackers to find and photograph an elusive and exotic creature…

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Or all the proof some people need that Bigfoot definitely exists. [Dog going through a bin]

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Footprints also tell us a lot about the dinosaurs that once roamed the Earth. [Big dinosaur footprint]

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For instance, footprint fossils can teach us about how dinosaurs moved around. [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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We like to think it was the flamenco, but maybe it was a stately waltz…

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They also can tell us whether a dinosaur moved around on two legs, like a T-Rex, four legs,

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like a Brontosaurus, or three legs, like a Brontosaurus with a broken leg… [Brontosaurus with a cast on its leg]

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And when scientists discover groups of footprints all heading in the same direction, well, that

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tells us that some massive, many-footed creature trundled along that path. [Dinosaur with lots of legs]

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We bet buying shoes was a nightmare.

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….Heh. We're kidding.

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What those prints actually tell us is that animals likely traveled in herds together!

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Of course, the size and shape of a footprint says a lot as well -

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For instance, this footprint belongs to a group of dinosaurs called Therapods, which

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means 3-toed.

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Makes sense, right?

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If a footprint is tiny, well, it's safe to assume the animal that left the footprint

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was pretty tiny, too. [The picture is zoomed in to show the tiny footprints]

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Unless they're some weird tip-toey ballerinasaurus. [Dinosaur wearing a ballerina costume]

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And if the footprint is gigantic, well, either we're talking about a pretty big dinosaur,

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or a medium-sized dinosaur that wore shoes that were way too big. [Dinosaur with huge shoes on]

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And prints don't have to refer specifically to footprints!

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Scientists can learn from other imprints, too.

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For example, some dinosaurs laid their eggs in nests on the ground, and the fossils left

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behind allow us to see how many eggs there were, as well as their size. [The eggs are measured]

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And no, they're not called "eggprints," but we think that's a kind of cute name, so we'll [Stop sign appears over 'eggprints']

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call them that anyway!

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So whether it's from feet, nests, or eggs, prints on the ground have taught us a whole

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lot about the dinosaurs that came before us. [All the weird dinosaurs walking around]

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Which makes us wonder…if there's some new species ruling the earth in a few million

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years, what will they think of our old footprints? [Aliens looking at a human footprint]

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