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Related: About this forumOldest Known Footprints in Grand Canyon Were Left by Mysterious, Sideways-Walking Reptile
Oldest Known Footprints in Grand Canyon Were Left by Mysterious, Sideways-Walking Reptile
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | November 15, 2018 08:02am ET
About 315 million years ago long before dinosaurs roamed the Earth an early reptile scuttled along in a strangely sideways jaunt, leaving its tiny footprints embedded in the landscape, new research finds.
It's anyone's guess why this ancient, clawed critter walked sideways (although experts have several ideas), but one thing is certain: The animal's prints represent the oldest-known vertebrate track marks ever discovered in Grand Canyon National Park, said Stephen Rowland, a professor of geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who is studying the fossilized trackway.
The trackway is so old, that it was made a mere 5 million years after the first known reptiles emerged on Earth, just as the ancient supercontinent Pangaea was forming. "This is right in that little window of the very first reptiles," Rowland told Live Science. "We don't know much about that real early history." [Photos: Dinosaur Tracks Reveal Australia's 'Jurassic Park']
The research, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, was presented at the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Oct. 17.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/64097-oldest-vertebrate-footprints-grand-canyon.html?utm_source=ls-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20181116-ls
eppur_se_muova
(36,289 posts)wcmagumba
(2,892 posts)the Proto-turtle...?
2naSalit
(86,775 posts)was it just one set of tracks? Were there lots of them so that this can be thought of as a regular behavior? If not, maybe it was just trying to get away from something or stepping over something... who really knows?
California_Republic
(1,826 posts)Something just playing around
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)druidity33
(6,446 posts)and being pushed sideways by a strong wind? Haven't gone to the link yet to see if there are photos...
2naSalit
(86,775 posts)I haven't gone to see the article but my inquiring mind kicked in and then I needed to go to bed. I studied Anthropology for my undergrad degree. I was really interested in archeology until I realized, after making friends with local Native Americans in my classes, that archeology was a practice of digging up dead people and their garbage and making up stories about them using the scant evidence found. So I switched to Cultural interests and linguistics instead, less offensive to present day people.
LakeSuperiorView
(1,533 posts)Definitely, line dancing.