In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists in Australia have uncovered the oldest known fossil footprints of a reptile-like creature, dating back an astonishing 350 million years. This remarkable find suggests that animals evolved the ability to live solely on land much earlier than previously believed.
“We had thought the transition from fin to limb took much longer,” said paleontologist Stuart Sumida of California State University, who was not involved in the research. The earliest known reptile footprints prior to this discovery were found in Canada and dated to 318 million years ago.
The ancient footprints were found on a slab of sandstone near Melbourne. They display reptile-like feet with long toes and hooked claws, indicating an animal approximately 80 centimeters long that may have resembled a modern monitor lizard. The findings were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
Study co-author and paleontologist Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University in Sweden highlighted the significance of the hooked claws. “It’s a walking animal,” he explained. Only creatures that had fully adapted to life on land developed claws; earlier vertebrates like fish and amphibians lacked hard nails and remained tied to watery environments for reproduction.
This discovery sheds new light on the evolution of amniotes—the group that includes modern reptiles, birds, and mammals—which developed feet with nails or claws suitable for traversing hard ground. “This is the earliest evidence we’ve ever seen of an animal with claws,” Sumida noted.
During the time this ancient reptile roamed, the region was hot and humid, with vast forests beginning to spread across the supercontinent Gondwana. The fossilized footprints capture a moment in time: one reptile scurrying across the ground before a light rain fell, raindrops partially obscuring its tracks, followed by two more reptiles moving in the opposite direction before the ground hardened and was buried by sediment.
“Fossil trackways are beautiful because they tell you how something lived, not just what it looked like,” said co-author John Long, a paleontologist at Flinders University in Australia. This discovery provides invaluable insight into the behaviors and adaptations of early land animals, reshaping our understanding of evolutionary history.
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Ancient reptile footprints reshape timeline of land animal evolution
cgtn.com
