The strange almost bird-like animals that existed long before these

2023-12-01 10:45:53

Unknown animals left bird-like tracks in the Late Triassic of southern Africa, about 210 million years ago. These footprints predate the oldest known bird bone by about 60 million years.

This has been discovered in a study recently carried out by Miengah Abrahams and Emese M. Bordy, both from the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Numerous fossil sites in southern Africa preserve characteristic three-toed footprints. The beings that left them have been given the name Trisauropodiscus. For many years, researchers have debated which animals might have left these tracks, as well as exactly how many different species of Trisauropodiscus existed.

In this study, the researchers reassessed the fossil record of these footprints, examining sets of fossil footprints and reviewing published materials documenting Trisauropodiscus at four sites in Lesotho dating from the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods.

The authors of the study also analyzed traces from an 80-meter-long site in Maphutseng. They identified two distinct morphologies among Trisauropodiscus footprints, the first of which is similar to certain non-avian dinosaur footprints, while the second is very similar in size and proportions to bird footprints.

On the left, fossilized footprints of Trisauropodiscus, from about 210 million years ago. On the right, modern bird tracks. (Images: Abrahams et al. CC BY 4.0)

These tracks do not directly match any known fossil animals from this region and time. The oldest of these footprints, about 210 million years old, is 60 million years older than the earliest known body fossils of true birds.

It is possible that these footprints were made by primitive dinosaurs, and even by the first members of a lineage close to that of birds, but the authors of the study point out that there could also have been other reptiles, evolutionary cousins ​​of dinosaurs, that evolved convergently toward feet. similar to those of birds.

The study has been published in the academic journal PLoS ONE, and its reference is: Abrahams M, Bordy EM (2023) The oldest fossil bird-like footprints from the upper Triassic of southern Africa. PLoS ONE 18(11): e0293021. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)