So after passing on ostriches, which have only two toes, or rheas, which have three-toes but overly rambunctious personalities, emus remained as the best alternative. Plus there was an emu ranch just across the state line in Colorado.
Breithaupt and his team now think that the Red Gulch dinosaurs were probably man-sized meat-eaters, or theropods, which were traveling along in groups. The groups may have included families, since there are juvenile and adults tracks together, implying some sort of parental care.
Exactly what the dinosaurs looked like, however, is a mystery because the mid-Jurassic Period is particularly poor in dinosaur fossils in North America.
"There is virtually nothing known about dinosaurs in North America from that time," said geologist Erik Kvale, who discovered the tracksite and did a great deal of the first geological work there. "Chances are there were some very gregarious behaviors of dinosaurs (at Red Gulch), but it's only a snapshot."
What can be said with more certainty is that the dinosaurs were walking in a very different landscape than today, says Kvale. The sands beneath their feet were carbonate sands like those found in the Bahamas or the Florida Keyes, but the climate of the ancient shoreline was probably a lot drier.
"The Persian Gulf is a better analogue," said Kvale.
