The footprints were first described by
Edward Hitchcock, a professor of
Amherst College, who thought they were made by a large bird. He originally assigned them to
ichnotaxon Ornithichnites in 1836, then
Ornithoidichnites in 1841, before coining
Eubrontes in 1845. The name means "true thunder," probably referring to the supposed weight of the animal impacting on the ground. in 1858 Hitchcock still described the tracks as those of "a thick-toed bird," since there was no evidence of tail drag marks. But by the time that
Richard Swann Lull began working on the tracks in 1904, they were thought to belong to a dinosaur. Lull originally thought they were from a herbivore, but by 1953 he concluded they were from a carnivorous
theropod. Many later authors have agreed with this interpretation, but some have suggested that they are from a
prosauropod. Regardless, they are almost certainly
saurischian. A typical
Eubrontes print is from 25–50 cm long, with three toes that terminate in sharp claws. It belongs to a biped that must have been over one metre high at the hip and from 5–6 metres long. In the 1960s
Edwin Colbert and others supposed that a large heavy carnivore like
Teratosaurus (then considered to be a dinosaur) made the track, but a possible candidate is
Dilophosaurus, a large
theropod related to
Coelophysis, or a close relative such as
Podokesaurus. However no
Dilophosaurus fossil material is associated with
Eubrontes tracks. The tracks may also be from a
plateosaurid. In 2016 Molina-Perez and Larramendi based on the 45 cm (1.48 ft) long footprint estimated the size of the animal at 8.4 meters (27.5 ft) and 600 kg (1.323 lbs). Another 60.5 cm (1.98 ft) long footprint belongs to an 8.1 meter (26.6 ft), 1.1 tonne (2.425 lbs) individual, that was very similar to
Sinosaurus triassicus. The attribution to
Dilophosaurus was primarily based on the wide angle between digit impressions three and four shown by these tracks, and the observation that the foot of the holotype specimen shows a similarly splayed-out fourth digit. Also in 2003, paleontologist Emma Rainforth argued that the splay in the holotype foot was merely the result of distortion, and that
Eubrontes would indeed be a good match for
Dilophosaurus. The paleontologist
Spencer G. Lucas and colleagues stated in 2006 that virtually universal agreement existed that
Eubrontes tracks were made by a theropod like
Dilophosaurus, and that they and other researchers dismissed Weems' claims. In 2006, Weems defended his 2003 assessment of
Eubrontes, and proposed an animal like
Dilophosaurus as the possible trackmaker of numerous
Kayentapus trackways of the Culpeper Quarry in Virginia. Weems suggested rounded impressions associated with some of these trackways to represent hand impressions lacking digit traces, which he interpreted as a trace of quadrupedal movement. Weems stated in 2019 that
Eubrontes tracks do not reflect the gracile feet of
Dilophosaurus, and argued they were instead made by the bipedal sauropodomorph
Anchisaurus. In a 2024 review of Jurassic tracks, the paleontologist
John R. Foster and colleagues stated that few other ichnologists had accepted Weems' sauropodomorph interpretation of
Eubrontes, partially because such tracks are abundant in places where no sauropodomorph fossils have been found. In 1975, two paleontologists in Tichá Dolina discovered several tracks originally named "Coelurosaurichnus Tatricus" and later it was renamed to Eubrontes Tatricus, because the original name was considered "invalid" but no evidence was given to support this claim i.e. one of the paleontologists who found it randomly decided to change the name. At the Slovak National Museum - Natural Museum, there is a life reconstruction of Eubrontes Tatricus. ==Paleopathology==