Ray Stanford has searched for fossils along the stream beds near IH 95 in the vicinity of College Park, Maryland, for a decade. Shortly after heavy rainfall over the area in the late 1990s, Stanford was surprised to find a dinosaur footprint preserved in sandstone. As he explained to The Citizen Scientist, "In front of the four-toed pes (back foot) imprint was a much smaller manus (front foot) imprint with five digit impressions."

These tracks did not match any Stanford had ever seen, so he consulted a book that detailed the skeletal anatomy of dinosaurs. Stanford explained what happened next in an e-mail: "The perfect match was that of a small ornithischian dinosaur, Hypsilophodon. Because hypsilophodontid tracks had never been documented before, and since it was impossible to say for sure which species of Hypsilophodon might have made the tracks, the footprint type was assigned a new ichnotaxon, Hypsiloichnus (meaning trace of a Hypsilophodon) marylandicus (from Maryland). According to the International Committee of Zoological Nomenclature, traces such as footprints produced by animals are named in the save way as actual animals, hence it was not an animal which was named, but its trace(s) or ichnite."

As for the significance of his discovery, Stanford writes, "The remains of Hypsilophodontids have been found in western North America, England, Europe, Asia, Australia, and even in Antarctica, but never in the eastern United States. Thus, the discovery of Hypsilophodontid footprints has extended our knowledge of the range of these two-meter-long animals into the east coast of North America. This is, therefore, a rare case in wherein paleoichnology has expanded paleontological knowledge."

Stanford's discovery did not end here, for he wrote The Citizen Scientist that he found, "virtually identical examples of hypsilophodontid tracks in diverse types of Early Cretaceous substrate." Stanford then teamed with Dr. Robert E. Weems of the U.S. Geological Survey and Dr. Martin G. Lockley of the University of Colorado to write a scientific paper about his discoveries.

Stanford writes that the paper describes, "...two of the finds in detail, each showing both manus and pes imprints, and it includes a map revealing that some of the fossil tracks were found just outside Washington, DC, while others were found northeast of Baltimore, Maryland. The paper also includes photographs and detailed drawings of both the type specimen (from the DC area of Maryland) and the referred specimen (from Baltimore county)."

Following peer review, the paper was published in the journal Ichnos . The citation is Ray Stanford, Robert E. Weems and Martin G. Lockley, A New Dinosaur Ichnotaxon from the Lower Cretaceous Patuxent Formation of Maryland and Virginia, Ichnos 11, 251-259 (2004).

Ray Stanford has continued his scientific pursuits of paleoichnology, the study of trace fossils left behind by ancient  plants and animals. He informs us that he has found numerous fossil footprints, track ways and other ichnofossils. He writes that he has found the remains of large, carbonized cypress trees.  He has also found, "...silicified (petrified) Cycadiodea marylandica , and two examples of a beautifully silicified and evidently new species of fern tree (silicified)."

As important as his discoveries is the fact that Stanford's paper that describes a new dinosaur ichnotaxon will not be his last. He has continued to collaborate with professionals and is now working long hours writing new papers.

Thanks to Denise and Sheldon Greaves of the Society for Amateur Scientists for first informing The Citizen Scientist about the remarkable discoveries of Ray Stanford.

Forrest M. Mims III