A reevaluation of the Late Jurassic dinosaur tracksite Barkhausen (Wiehengebirge, Northern Germany)

Abstract

A restudy of the Barkhausen dinosaur tracksite shows that the track-bearing surface reveals considerably more detail than previously indicated, and a new map is presented, showing the trackways of nine sauropods, traveling north, possibly as a group. These are among the smallest sauropod tracks recorded in Europe. There is also evidence of two large theropods crossing the area, one moving to the south and the other to the west. Evidence of at least three other sauropods is registered in the form of isolated manus traces that represent larger individuals. Previous interpretations inferred that sauropod trackways trended south, and therefore suggested a predator chasing its prey as in the purported but controversial attack scenario claimed for the famous Paluxy River site in Texas. Based on the present study, this scenario is no longer tenable for the Barkhausen tracksite. The description of Elephantopoides barkhausensis (Kaever and Lapparent, 1974) shows that it represents a moderately wide gauge, but small manus sauropod and can be assigned under the ichnofamily label Parabrontopodidae. E. barkhausensis as originally defined was a nomen dubium, but it has since been re-described semi-formally, without renaming, we emend the description and assigned them to the ichnotaxon Parabrontopodus barkhausensis comb. nov. These tracks could have been produced by the small sauropod dinosaur taxon Europasaurus. The problematic ichnotaxon Megalosauropus teutonicus (Kaever and Lapparent, 1974), which represents a large three-toed theropod, is assigned to the recently described ichnogenus Jurabrontes from the Late Kimmeridgian of the Swiss Jura mountains as Jurabrontes teutonicus comb. nov. Furthermore, we attribute the theropod tracks from the time equivalent Langenberg quarry to the same ichnotaxon.