Aussie ’raptor-like’ dinosaur revealed to be a timid vegetarian

A life-reconstruction of herbivorous dinosaurs based on 220-million-year-old fossil footprints from Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Image credit: Anthony Romilio and Kamil Porembinski, CC by-SA2. Fossil footprints found in an Ipswich coal mine have long been thought to be that of a large 'raptor-like' predatory dinosaur, but scientists have found they were instead left by a timid long-necked herbivore. University of Queensland palaeontologist Dr Anthony Romilio recently led an international team to re-analyse the footprints, dated to the latter part of the Triassic Period, around 220 million-year-ago. "For years it's been believed that these tracks were made by a massive predator that was part of the dinosaur family Eubrontes , with legs over two metres tall," Dr Romilio said. "This idea caused a sensation decades ago because no other meat-eating dinosaur in the world approached that size during the Triassic period. "But our research shows the tracks were instead made by a dinosaur from the Evazoum family - vegetarian dinosaurs that were smaller, with legs about 1.4 metres tall and a body length of six metres." The research team suspected there was something not-quite-right with the original size estimates and there was a good reason for their doubts.