Case in point is a type of scratching that male ground-nesting birds do to signal they are strong and good nest builders. It's part of behavior called lekking, when males, typically in groups, competitively dance and perform other courtship rituals to attract the attention of females. Dinosaurs engaged in similar mating behavior, according to fossilized "scrapes" left behind in 100 million-year-old rocks in the prehistoric Dakota Sandstone of western Colorado. One site revealed more than 60 distinct scrapes in a single area of up to 164 feet long and 49 feet wide. "The scrape evidence has significant implications," Martin Lockley, professor emeritus of geology at the University of Colorado Denver, said when the study was released in 2016.
Read full article at Action News Now