Fearsome Dinosaur That Stalked Australia Was a Timid Plant Eater

A new analysis of fossilized footprints corrects what earlier scientists mistook for a very early carnivore in the dinosaur era.

For more than 50 years, the giant fossilized footprints have been one of the most tantalizing finds in Australian paleontology.

At the time of their discovery, scientists believed the three birdlike tracks had been made 200 million to 250 million years ago by a two-legged predator. The tracks were the first evidence that dinosaurs roamed Australia in the Triassic, when the creatures first appeared on the planet.

By 2003, some paleontologists even suspected that the footprints represented the world’s earliest evidence of a giant carnivorous dinosaur, one that may have stood up to 6-½ feet high at the hip.