By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer |
November 1, 2016 04:58pm ET
SALT LAKE CITY — About 290
million years ago, a four-legged reptile with three toes on each of its back
feet strolled across the mucky land, the waves of a tidal flat likely lapping
near its feet, a new study finds.
The ancient environment preserved
this creature's footprints in a fossilized trackway that researchers are
calling Chelichnus gigas. (Scientists name trackways like they do new species.)
However, although researchers have a clear view of the animal's back feet, the
shape of its front feet remains a mystery.
That's because like many
four-legged (or tetrapodal) animals, this ancient critter's back feet would
have stepped directly on top of the freshly made footprints of its front feet, meaning
that the front footprints are obscured by the back ones, said study lead
researcher Stephen Rowland, a professor of geology at the University of Nevada,
Las Vegas.
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