Artist’s impression of the” dance “of the Cretaceous theropod seduction. – XING LIDA, Yujiang HAN / NATURE / AFP

N.Bg. with AFP

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The dredge technology will help anyone to shine on Tinder today, but it has the merit of the age: a study published in the magazine Scientific Reports this week shows how male dinosaurs baited their females. How did they do? By scraping the ground to make a hole. How do we know? Because we found said holes.

Martin Lockley and his Cart colleague Ken to holes dug by Cretaceous theropods. (c) M.LOCKLEY / NATURE / AFP

An international team has discovered in the United States many brands of tillage of the soil, sometimes as big as a bathtub, left on layers of sandstone sandy Cretaceous (145-66000000 years ago). These hollow, numbering several dozen, were spotted at four sites in Colorado areas lived theropods, a group of Dinosaur which includes the famous Tyrannosaurus but also the ancestors of birds .

Traces of a new kind

The fossil traces of a totally new kind, suggests that “ Dinosaur ‘heat ‘may have gathered there there are millions of years to breed and to nest next, “said Martin Lockley, Professor of Geology at the University of Colorado Denver, in a statement.

& gt; & gt; TO READ. “The debate on the end of the dinosaurs will never be totally closed”

The fossilized marks are reminiscent of those that leave some modern ground-nesting birds, when the males engage in demonstrations digging nests to impress the females, who also stresses the palaeontologist. The study, released Thursday, cites puffins and ostrich.



Other hypotheses excluded

Because until now, we could only speculate on rituals love dinosaurs – even if we had some clues. “We know they had feathers, crests and a good view,” says Lockley, quoted in the Guardian . “But there had never been any physical evidence that their anatomy and behavior were designed for high-energy demonstrations. Today we have the evidence. (…) This will fill a gap in our understanding of the behavior of Dinosaur , “he added.

The researchers reviewed several other hypotheses likely to explain this new type of trace fossils before discharge.

They do not think that these are signs of real nests because they have not found fossilized eggs or shells. They do not believe they reflect the search for food or water by Dinosaur . Or whether due to a territorial marking by the theropod. No, it is definitely well and truly hard-drag

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