Bird X-rays could be the secret to understanding dinosaur tracks

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last updated 8 January 2015

An X-ray video of a modern bird foot could help scientists better understand dinosaur tracks from more than 250 million years ago.

The tracks of Corvipes lacertoideus, a dinosaur roughly the size of a chicken, contain marks that scientists believe were left when the dinosaur picked up its feet. But without X-rays, they couldn't fully explain the features, Live Science reports.

The new video marks "the first time anyone has been able to see a footprint being formed," study author Peter Falkingham, of the University of London's Royal Veterinary College, told Live Science. Falkingham and his colleagues created X-ray videos of a guineafowl, a relative of chickens and a descendant of dinosaurs, walking over a bed of poppy seeds, and then used those X-rays to create computer simulations. Falkingham and his colleagues then compared the simulations with the Corvipes tracks to see how the dinosaur tracks' odd features formed.