Michoacán Tyrannosaurs, Raptors and ‘Duck-Billed’ Dinosaurs: Mexico Confirms Discovery of 50 Footprints in Apatzingán

ByLa Jornada Editorial Staff

This article by La Jornada Editorial Staff originally appeared in the October 26, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) reported the discovery of at least 50 fossilized dinosaur footprints of various species that inhabited part of the current territory of Apatzingán, Michoacán, 65 million years ago.

Among them, based on their morphology (size, shape, number of toes and depth), they are attributed to three families of dinosaurs: a carnivorous one of theropods, of large size, up to 4 meters tall, possibly that of the tyrannosaurids, characterized by its three-toed footprint. Another corresponds to smaller dinosaurs, up to 2 meters tall, similar to raptors (Dromaeosauridae), with three toes; and an herbivorous one, of the duck-billed type (Hadrosauridae), which could reach 4 meters in height, whose footprint shows three toes with rounded ends.

Researcher measuring a dinosaur footprint in Apatzingán
The dimensions of the ichnites range between 12 and 48 centimeters in length, and up to 30 centimeters in width. Photo: Centro INAH Michoacán

The dinosaur footprints were found in the bed of a stream, in the community of San Juan de los Plátanos, municipality of Apatzingán. The discovery began with a notice from local residents, who alerted the institute to the presence of footprints of “giant animals.”

The researcher from the Centro INAH Michoacán, Raymundo Cervantes Barriga, went to the site to make the assessment and confirmed that these are tracks of herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs over an area of 40 square meters, on a platform of sedimentary rock, at the edge of the river. The dimensions of the ichnites range between 12 and 48 centimeters in length, and up to 30 centimeters in width.

Cervantes Barriga explains that these species lived 65 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous, when the region must have had bodies of water, where the animals came to feed.

A find of this kind opens a window onto a period that we all have in our imagination, but that we rarely get the opportunity to study.

Archaeologist Punzo Díaz

“It has not yet been determined how many species will be identified with paleontological study protocols, but, in the first observations, this variety of footprints can expand our knowledge about many aspects of dinosaurs in Mexico, such as locomotion, the direction of their gait and, with that, the coexistence between species, behavior and morphology,” the archaeologist Punzo Díaz added.

INAH specialists examining the footprints at the site
Specialists went to the site and identified tracks of two carnivorous theropods, others similar to those of raptors, and duck-billed dinosaurs. Photo: INAH

Paleontologist Cervantes Barriga comments that in Michoacán there are precedents of this type of footprints at three sites: Playa Azul, in Lázaro Cárdenas; El Aguaje, in Aguililla, and the border of Tiquicheo and Tuzantla. Now, this point in Apatzingán would be the fourth. In Mexico there are just over 30 sites with dinosaur ichnites registered with INAH, located in the states of Puebla, Coahuila, Oaxaca, Chihuahua, Sonora, Durango and Michoacán.