But Mother Nature often has more than a few tricks up her sleeve when you’re way out there, and one of her most common is leaving you to traverse a trail strewn with thick, slippery mud.

“They are the Martini,” he says, “using gin; the Manhattan and the Old Fashioned, using whiskey; the Daiquiri, using rum, the Side Car, using Cognac; and the Jack Rose, using applejack.

Palaeontologists say that the footprints are so detailed that it is possible to see how the mud was deformed as it was “squelched” under the huge weight of the dinosaur feet. The footprints ...