These traces are a big mystery to scientists, because even the oldest ancestors of birds do not date back more than 60 million years. They have been known for a long time, but a team from the University of Cape Town in South Africa decided to conduct a more detailed analysis of fossils from four different sites in the region.

mystery of traces

Examining evidence found at the Mafutseng site, an 80-metre footprint section, researchers were able to identify two different footprint species (or morphotypes) belonging to the Trisauropodiscus category. has been called before.

Part of the tracks of an unknown ancient animal / Photo: PLOS ONE

Our results show that Trisauropodiscus has two distinct morphotypes, one of which resembles bird tracks.
– geologists Mienga Abrahams and Emese Bordi write in their article.

• According to the researchers, the feet of the first morphotype were larger and longer, and their toes were closer together. These footprints are not unlike Anomoepus, another fossilized footprint that researchers think was left by a specific type of dinosaur.
• As for the second type, these scars are on average half the size and wider than the neck, with thinner toes. This morphotype is a greater mystery because it is close to modern birds.

Part of the tracks of an unknown ancient animal / Photo: PLOS ONE

Researchers assume that the tracks that fall into the second morphotype category were left by the oldest ancestors of birds. In other words, Dinosaurs may have started showing some bird-like features much earlier than we previously thought.

The fact that these tracks in South Africa, dated to the Late Triassic, are so similar to Cenozoic and modern bird tracks supports the convergent foot morphology of Late Mesozoic archosaurs and strongly suggests that the origin of bird-like foot morphology is at least 210 million years old.
– write researchers.

The mystery of exactly which ancient animal left these tracks remains to be solved, but researchers believe it must have been a type of three-toed archosaur (a branch of the evolutionary tree that split at some point, giving rise to modern birds and crocodiles). .