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MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 2014 HEALTH & SCIENCE Dinosaur footprints set for public display in Utah SALT LAKE CITY: A dry wash full of 112-million-year- old dinosaur tracks that include an ankylosaurus, dromaeosaurus and a menacing ancestor of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, is set to open to the public this fall in Utah. There are more than 200 tracks near the city of Moab from 10 different ancient animals that lived during the early Cretaceous period, said Utah Bureau of Land Management paleontologist ReBecca Hunt-Foster. They were first discovered in 2009 by a resident. Since then, paleontologists led by a team at the University of Colorado at Denver have studied them and prepared them for display. The tracks include a set of 17 consecutive footprints left by WASHINGTON: Panda cub Bao Bao licks her birthday cake at the National Zoo in Tyrannosaurus rex ancestor and the imprint of an Washington. — AP photos ancient crocodile pushing off into the water. The site is one of the largest areas of dinosaur tracks from the National Zoo celebrates early Cretaceous period known to exist in North America, she said. panda’s first birthday “We don’t usually get this,” said Hunt-Foster, a paleontologist for 16 years. “It is a beautiful track site, one of the best ones I’ve ever seen.” There are foot- WASHINGTON: The National Zoo in and-white bundle whose favorite activity is prints from duckbilled dinosaurs, prehistoric birds, Washington threw a party Saturday in honor sleeping in a tree. A hemlock tree in the front long-necked plant eaters and a dromaeosaur similar of the first birthday of panda cub Bao Bao. To of her yard is one favorite, and she also likes to a velociraptor or Utah raptor that had long, sharp celebrate, the cub got a cake made from wrestling with a blue cylinder-shaped buoy claws. In one rock formation, a footprint left behind frozen fruit juice and other treats like pears filled with sand, MacCorkle said. The cub, by a large plant eater is right in the middle of prints and apples. Bao Bao is only the second panda whose name means “precious” or “treasure,” from a meat-eating theropod, Hunt-Foster said. The born at the zoo to survive to her first birthday. has also started eating solid food like sweet imprint of an ancient crocodile shows the chest, The cub’s only sibling, brother Tai Shan, potato and bamboo and recently got her first body, tail and one foot. Paleontologists believe it was was born in 2005 and returned to China in taste of honey. made while the crocodile was pushing off a muddy 2010. Panda keeper Nicole MacCorkle says She’s also learned behaviors that help bank into water. Paleontologists believe the tracks Bao Bao has been a different baby from her keepers monitor her health including getting brother, including a little more stand-offish on a scale and standing up when asked. with keepers. In the past year she has grown Lately, she’s “getting really good” and from a wriggling pink newborn a little bigger responding when her name is called, than a stick of butter to a 44-pound black- MacCorkle said, and is exploring her yard a lit- tle more. “She’s really becoming an independ- ent bear,” MacCorkle said. The next year will bring even more changes. Bao Bao will stop drinking her mother’s milk and, like wild pan- das of the same age, at between a year and a half and two years old she’ll start living inde- pendently in her own enclosure. Eventually MOAB: This photo shows theropod tracks found north of Moab, Utah. — AP photos keepers will also teach her to present her paw were made over several days in what was a shallow being tempted to touch. Earlier this year, a Utah man to get blood drawn and lie down in order to lake. They likely became covered by sediment that was arrested and slapped with a federal charge after get an ultrasound. filled them up quickly enough to preserve them but authorities say he pried a piece of sandstone with a The National Zoo is one of only four zoos gently enough not to scour them out, Hunt-Foster three-toed ancient dinosaur track from the Sand nationwide to have pandas, which are on said. Over time, as more sediment built up, they Flats Recreation Area near Moab. He pleaded guilty loan from China. The zoo’s first pair of pandas, became rock. They’re near a fault line, where the land while accepting a deal that calls for him to serve one Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, were a gift from has moved up and down over the years, she said. year of probation with six months under house China following President Richard Nixon’s his- Rains slowly eroded away layers of the rock, expos- arrest. Paleontologist Martin Lockley of the toric 1972 visit to the country. The pair had ing the footprints. When it opens in October, the site University of Colorado at Denver has taken the lead five cubs while living at the zoo but none sur- will have a trail leading people to the tracks with in studying, cleaning and preparing the tracks. Their WASHINGTON: Panda cub Bao Bao vived. The zoo’s current pandas, Bao Bao’s signs explaining what they are looking at. Officials uniqueness has lured paleontologists from several hangs from a tree in her habitat at the mother and father, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, This artist’s rendition shows the foot of a are trying to raise funds to provide shade and a countries, including from Poland, Korea and China, National Zoo on her first birthday. arrived in 2000. — AP dinosaur similar to Utahraptor. boardwalk so people can look at the tracks without Hunt-Foster said.— AP.

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