New fossils found near Maroon Bells

New fossil tracks of a very old dinosaur were found in the Permian Maroon Formation. From the article in the Aspen Times:

Research yielded evidence of four animal species
in the tracks around the Maroon Bells. About 90 percent of the tracks
came from Diadectes, a prehistoric creature that roamed the world 70
million years before the first dinosaurs, Small said. The species was a
tetrapod, which means it was four-legged, and a herbivore. It left
tracks about 5 inches long.

With a turtle head and a lizard
body, Diadectes had qualities of both amphibians and reptiles, Small
said. Rather than a missing link, it was an "odd mixture" remaining
after amphibians and reptiles split into two distinctive groups, he
said.

Diadectes was doomed, either through further evolution or
death of the species. It was extinct shortly after it left the tracks
near Aspen.

"They didn't leave any descendants," Small said. "They were a dead-end species."

Fossils of insects and conifer trees have also been
found in the Maroon formation since the discovery of the Diadectes
tracks. Those discoveries allowed scientists to determine that the land
that became the Maroon Bells was once much closer to the equator, when
it was part of the supercontinent called Pangea. The climate was more
like India and parts of Africa, with monsoonal rains and dry conditions.


The place near the Maroon Bells where the hundreds of tracks were found
probably wasn't a superhighway for Diadectes. Small's guess is that the
sliver of land just happened to be preserved. Tracks were likely
everywhere.

Since that discovery in 2001, Diadectes tracks have
been found in the Maroon formation near Glenwood Springs and State
Bridge. It appears the herbivore proliferated.


These dinosaurs were walking around when the Ancestral Rockies were still around.