As the name implies, fossil footprints are this park's main attraction. They were formed during the Early Jurassic period (approximately 200 million years ago) when what is now the Connecticut River Valley was a subtropical region filled with lakes and swamps. Bipedal, carnivorous dinosaurs up to long left footprints on the ancient mudflats. The area was acclaimed by 19th century paleontologists for its abundance of fossil specimens, dinosaur tracks in particular, and the reservation is popular with the ichnologists who study them. This area was first studied by Edward Hitchcock, the Amherst College professor who advanced the revolutionary notion that rather than being cold-blooded reptiles, dinosaurs were more like a sort of "reptilian bird." In the 1930s, a Springfield, Massachusetts newspaper poked fun at this notion by referring to the animals that left the fossilized footprints as "the Giant Turkeys of Prof. Hitchcock."
