Experts have developed an AI-powered app to instantly analyse dinosaur footprints – helping palaeontologists and amateur enthusiasts unlock secrets of the prehistoric world.
Researchers and dinosaur fans alike can upload an image or sketch of a dinosaur footprint from their mobile phone to the DinoTracker app and receive an instant analysis.
The technology, developed by University of Edinburgh and Berlin’s Helmholtz-Zentrum research centre, uses advanced algorithms to enable computers to train themselves to recognise variations in the shape of dinosaur footprints.
Traditional methods required researchers to manually compile computer datasets in which specific tracks were assigned to specific dinosaurs, which could introduce bias, experts say.
The AI model schooled itself on nearly 2,000 fossil footprints, plus millions of additional variations to mimic realistic changes, such as compression and edge displacement.
It identified eight key features of footprint variation, including the spread of the toes, the position of the heel, the size of contact area the foot made while striking the ground and the amount of weight placed on different parts of the foot.
The breakthrough has profound implications for the identification of ancient dinosaur tracks – allowing researchers and amateurs to potentially distinguish between fierce carnivores, gentle plant-eaters or even early species of birds.
The algorithm achieved around 90 percent agreement with the classifications made by human experts, even for contentious species.
Most intriguingly, the network found that several dinosaur tracks, made more than 200 million years ago, share uncanny features with extinct and modern birds.
This suggests that birds could have originated tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought, or alternatively, that some primitive dinosaurs actually had feet that coincidentally resembled those of birds to a high degree, the team says.
The system also indicated that some long-mysterious footprints from the Isle of Skye in Scotland, which were impressed on the muddy shore of a lagoon around 170 million years ago, might have been made by some of the oldest relatives of duck-billed dinosaurs known from anywhere in the world.
Professor Steve Brusatte, Personal Chair of Palaeontology and Evolution, School of GeoSciences, said: “This study is an exciting contribution for paleontology and an objective, data-driven way to classify dinosaur footprints – something that has stumped experts for over a century.
“It opens up exciting new possibilities for understanding how these incredible animals lived and moved, and when major groups like birds first evolved. This computer network might have identified the world’s oldest birds, which I think is a fantastic and fruitful use for AI.”
