Dinosaurs were Well-Coordinated Swimmers: Study

Researchers have now found that dinosaurs were well-coordinated swimmers and could swim for long distances.

A University of Alberta researcher Scott Persons, along with an international team of researchers, examined claw marks at a Chinese river basin that was used by dinosaurs to travel.

The river bed, which is now China's Szechuan Province, had gone through various "dry" and "wet" cycles and has plenty of footprints of dinosaurs.

"We found evidence of six or eight individual animals, all headed in the same direction, moving together as if they were part of a herd. It looks as if they used the river bank as a superhighway," said Persons, The Science Recorder reported.

Persons said that the claw marks showed a coordinated left-right movement. The marks were seen for about 15 meters and the study team says that it provides evidence of coordinated swimming in dinosaurs.

"What we have are scratches left by the tips of a two-legged dinosaur's feet. The dinosaur's claw marks show it was swimming along in this river and just its tippy toes were touching bottom," said Persons in a news release.

The tracks are believed to have been made by the theropod dinosaur, a carnivore about 1 meter in length from the hip.

The study is published in the journal Chinese Science Bulletin.

Persons and other members of the study team from the Szechuan Province fossil site are expected to continue to examine the swimming abilities of dinosaurs.