In the case of a hike in the Grand Canyon national Park in the USA has been a researcher with his students, ancient occurs discovered traces of an animal. The 28 notches were seen on the way of fallen boulders. You seem to have been developed prior to 310 million years ago.

The age of such finds is usually determined by the Dating of the rock layer in which they were discovered. What animal the tracks come from, is still unclear.

The geologist Stephen Rowland, who discovered the tracks, but has studied, believes that they are attributable to a kind of reptile. It is conceivable that the type had not yet been discovered, he said at the annual American society for Vertebrate paleontology.

life before the time of dinosaurs

but: “For reptiles traces of the prints are really old,” the researchers, working at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. One must bear in mind that they came from a time when the last super continent, Pangaea, formed.

The conditions on earth at that time were hardly comparable with today’s conditions. Vertebrate animals were gone, in evolutionary standards, only a short time before at all on Land – in front of about 416 to Bahis Siteleri 359 million years ago. And the dinosaurs developed earliest in front of about 245 million years ago.

Mysterious step pattern

Especially Rowland wondered about the step pattern on the stone. It looked as if the animal ran to the side. Then he had considered whether, instead, be two animals next to each other were hergewandert. “That one would expect in the case of lizard-like species. It all made no sense.”

drawing from Rowland

So, customized Rowland exact drawings of the tracks and was designed with several hypotheses about the “strange Line-Dance-Gang”. One reason for the lateral movement can be, therefore, that the animal was in a strong side wind on the road, he said. Conceivable is also, that it has tried to make a very steep sand dune to climb up or a fight or a mating ritual was involved.

“I’m not sure if we can ever clear in a variant,” says Rowland. In January he will publish his findings in a scientific magazine.

jme