Hairy Museum of Natural History

Tracks that were probably made by temnospondyls are known from many Pennsylvanian and Permian sediments. Track fossils are given their own scientific names because it is almost impossible to say for certain what specific animal made a particular track, although the age and shape of a footprint can often suggest what general type of animal made a certain type of track.

This image was based on two different types of tracks found in Permian sediments in southern New Mexico. A small temnospondyl leaving behind Limnopus tracks confronts a scorpion, who has made a series of Permichnium traces. This specific confrontation is not based on a particular trackway, although some paleoichnologists (scientists who study fossil footprints) have suggested that fine-grained rocks from the Permian of New Mexico show evidence of predatory interactions between vertebrates and invertebrates. The direct evidence for such confrontations is equivocal. But it seems certain that scenarios like this would have taken place along sandy shorelines towards the end of the Paleozoic, whenever two such disparate trackmakers scuffled over a few square feet of beachfront property.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Carboniferous, Permian, Tetrapods.