Villagers’ report of giant animal footprints leads INAH to dinosaur tracks in Michoacán

Residents of a small community in western Mexico noticed strange, oversized footprints pressed into the rock of a nearby stream. They told the authorities about the prints of “giant animals.” Specialists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have now confirmed that the marks are dinosaur tracks, at least 50 of them, and that they likely date to the final stretch of the Late Cretaceous, roughly 65 million years ago.

How villagers started the investigation

The tracks lie in a stream bed near San Juan de los Plátanos, in the municipality of Apatzingán in Michoacán. Local people alerted INAH, and a multidisciplinary team from the INAH Michoacán center began documenting the site on 21 October 2026. Mexico’s Secretary of Culture, Claudia Curiel de Icaza, credited the residents for raising the alarm. She said the footprints bring people closer to the history of Mexican territory from millions of years ago.

What the team found in the stream bed

So far the researchers have documented at least 50 footprints across about 40 square meters of exposed sedimentary rock. The prints range from 12 to 48 centimeters in length, and some reach about 30 centimeters in width. Early analysis by the team suggests the tracks fall into three groups.

The first group likely belongs to a large carnivorous dinosaur, possibly from the tyrannosaur family, standing up to about four meters tall. The second group looks like the work of smaller, raptor-like dromaeosaurs, up to about two meters tall. The third group matches duck-billed hadrosaurs, plant eaters that could also reach about four meters. Raymundo Cervantes Barriga, of INAH Michoacán, said the area probably held water that drew animals looking for food, which could explain why predators and herbivores left tracks in the same place.

How researchers are recording the tracks

The team is using photogrammetry to build 3D records of the prints, making molds of the tracks, and collecting rock samples for geological analysis. Geologist Jacinto Robles Camacho and archaeologist José Luis Punzo Díaz are among the named specialists working on the project. Punzo Díaz described the find as a window onto a period that many people carry in their imagination.

Why this site matters

Track sites capture behavior in a way bones usually cannot. A well-studied trackway can show how fast an animal moved, which way it was heading, and whether different species shared the same landscape. Here, the mix of meat eaters and plant eaters in one stretch of rock may offer a snapshot of dinosaurs gathering near water shortly before the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. This is the fourth dinosaur footprint site known in Michoacán, and INAH has registered more than 30 such sites across Mexico.

Caveats and open questions

The identifications are preliminary. The groups are described as families that the tracks may belong to, and the size estimates have not been explained in detail in the reports we found. The team also says the tracks continue beyond the area studied so far, so the final count could rise well above 50. Further work should clarify movement directions, locomotion and how these animals shared the same space. Until the team publishes detailed measurements, it is wise to treat the exact species, sizes and dates as working estimates rather than settled facts.

For now, the story is a good reminder that discoveries often begin with local knowledge. People who walk the same stream every day noticed something odd, spoke up, and handed scientists a rare glimpse of the last dinosaurs of Mexico.

Sources

• INAH announcement via Excélsior: INAH descubre 50 huellas de dinosaurios en Michoacán (27 October 2026)
• HeritageDaily: 50 dinosaur footprints found in Mexico date back 65 million years (27 October 2026)