Scientists Find Footprints Older Than the Dinosaurs

A mat composed of microbes may have preserved a series of 255-million-year-old indentations made in a sandy South African tidal bottom by a hulking amphibian, a new study says.
The remarkable shapes reveal that the nearly 2-meter-long rhinesuchid temnospondyl lurked for its prey and swam after it in the fashion of a crocodile. Like a prehistoric choreographer’s diagram, the impressions are a unique window into life on ancient earth shortly before the Permian Mass Extinction Event destroyed 90 percent of species on the planet.
“The findings of the study are significant because they help to fill in gaps in our knowledge of these ancient animals,” the authors say in a statement. “The remarkable tracks and traces […] provide direct evidence of how these animals moved and interacted with their environment.”
Scientists Find Footprints Older Than the Dinosaurs