Oldest Land-Walker Tracks Found--Pushes Back Evolution

The first animals to walk the Earth emerged from the sea almost 20 million years earlier than previously thought, say scientists who have discovered footprints from an 8-foot-long (2.4-meter-long) prehistoric creature.

Dozens of the 395-million-year-old fossil footprints were recently discovered on a former marine tidal flat or lagoon in southeastern Poland (prehistoric time line).The prints were made by tetrapods—animals with backbones and four limbs—and could rewrite the history of when, where, and why fish evolved limbs and first walked onto land, the study says.

Because they are thought to have evolved from such creatures, reptiles, birds, and mammals—including humans—are today classified as tetrapods. These are the oldest tetrapod tracks and also the oldest evidence of true tetrapods, study co-author Grzegorz Niedƃwiedzki, a paleontologist at Warsaw University, commented via e-mail.

The tracks were made by several individuals of a four-limbed species that had digits, or toes, on each foot, according to the research.

We are dealing with creatures that were walking, said Marek Narkiewicz, a geologist at the Polish Geological Institut and co-author of the study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.

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