Reptile footprints rewrite the timeline
Clawed tracks in Australia suggest amniotes existed 35 million years earlier than any skeleton shows.
- When
- Known to
- ± 5 million years
- Era
- Carboniferous, Paleozoic
Trackways described in 2025 from Victoria, Australia, dated to around 355 million years ago, show clawed feet of a kind only amniotes possess — claws being an adaptation for walking on dry land rather than in water. If the interpretation holds, the origin of the group that becomes reptiles, birds and mammals moves back some 35 million years, and much of early tetrapod evolution must be compressed into a far shorter window.