Latest news with #footprints
CNA
14-05-2025
- Science
- CNA
Ancient footprints from Australia reveal earliest-known reptile
Seventeen footprints preserved in a slab of sandstone discovered in southeastern Australia dating to about 355 million years ago are rewriting the history of the evolution of land vertebrates, showing that reptiles arose much earlier than previously known. The fossilized footprints, apparently made on a muddy ancient river bank, include two trackways plus one isolated print, all displaying hallmark features of reptile tracks including overall shape, toe length and associated claw marks, researchers said. They appear to have been left by a reptile with body dimensions similar to those of a lizard, they said. The footprints reveal that reptiles existed about 35 million years earlier than previously known, showing that the evolution of land vertebrates occurred more rapidly than had been thought. "So this is all quite radical stuff," said paleontologist Per Ahlberg of the University of Uppsala in Sweden, who led the study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature. The Australian footprints were preserved in a sandstone slab measuring about 14 inches (35 cm) across that was found on the banks of the Broken River near the town of Barjarg in the state of Victoria. The story of land vertebrates started with fish leaving the water, a milestone in the evolution of life on Earth. These animals were the first tetrapods - meaning "four feet" - and they were the forerunners of today's terrestrial vertebrates: amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds. Footprints in Poland dating to about 390 million years ago represent the oldest fossil evidence for these first tetrapods, which lived an amphibious lifestyle. These creatures were the ancestors of all later land vertebrates. Their descendants split into two major lineages - one leading to today's amphibians and the other to the amniotes, a group spanning reptiles, mammals and birds. The amniotes, the first vertebrates to lay eggs on land and thus finally break free of the water, cleaved into two lineages, one leading to reptiles and the other to mammals. Birds evolved much later from reptile ancestors. The Australian footprints each are approximately 1-1.5 inches (3-4 cm) long. They appear to have been left by three individuals of the same reptile species, with no tail drag or body drag marks. No skeletal remains were found but the footprints offer some idea of what the reptile that made them looked like. "The feet are rather lizard-like in shape, and the distance between hip and shoulder appears to have been about 17 cm (6.7 inches). Of course we don't know anything about the shape of the head, the length of the neck or the length of the tail, but if we imagine lizard-like proportions the total length could have been in the region of 60 cm to 80 cm (24 to 32 inches)," Ahlberg said. "In terms of its overall appearance, 'lizard-like' is probably the best guess, because lizards are the group of living reptiles that have retained the closest approximation to the ancestral body form," Ahlberg added. The modest size of the earliest reptiles stands in contrast to some of their later descendants like the dinosaurs. This reptile probably was a predator because plant-eating did not appear until later in reptilian evolution. The bodies of herbivorous reptiles tend to be big and clunky, whereas this one evidently was lithe with long, slender toes, Ahlberg said. The researchers also described newly identified fossilized reptile footprints from Poland dating to 327 million years ago that broadly resemble those from Australia. Those also are older than the previous earliest-known evidence for reptiles - skeletal fossils from Canada of a lizard-like creature named Hylonomus dating to around 320 million years ago, as well as fossil footprints from about the same time. The reptile that left the Australian footprints lived during the Carboniferous Period, a time when global temperatures were similar to today's, with ice at Earth's poles but a warm equatorial region. Australia at the time formed part of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana and lay at the southern edge of the tropics. There were forests, partly composed of giant clubmoss trees. "The tracks were left near the water's edge of what was probably quite a large river, inhabited by a diversity of big fishes," Ahlberg said.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Fossil footprints found in Australia the oldest evidence of amniotes
Fossilised footprints found in Australia provide the oldest evidence for reptiles on Earth, a discovery that suggests the group evolved in the southern rather than the northern hemisphere, and some 35-40 million years earlier than thought. A 35cm trackway of clawed footprints found in sandstone on Taungurung country, near Mansfield in eastern Victoria, have been dated to between 354 and 358m years old in a paper published in Nature, making them the oldest on record. The previously oldest fossil records, from Europe and North America, are estimated at 318m years old
The Sun
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
20 players ELIMINATED in brutal 1% Club picture question – would you have guessed correctly?
A WHOPPING 20 players were eliminated on a brutally challenging question on The 1% Club. Lee Mack was left stunned when he revealed that 20 contestants had failed to correctly identify the correct images in a tricky picture question. 4 4 The result of the 30% question changed the face of the game, shedding half of the remaining current players. Lee read aloud to the group: "How many RIGHT FOOTPRINTS can you see in the sand." An image was then displayed showcasing an assortment of footprints in the sand. Players were then given 30 seconds to differentiate between the right and left feet. But it seemed that many of the contestants were unable to do so as they arrived at different answers. Lee then confirmed that the correct answer was in fact, eight. The image then turned the eight right feet green in order to correctly display which of the options the players should have been looking at. Would you have been able to identify all eight right footprints? As the answer was revealed, Lee said on the show: "Wow! We lost a lot of people there!" That isn't the only option to leave players stumped in recent weeks. The 1% Club viewers stumped over a trick word question knocking out 11 people - but did you get it right- Last week, the show's final option wiped out all five players, costing them a whopping £97,000. Reading out the final question, Lee poised to the players: "What new word links the capitalised words below?" He then read aloud this sentence which featured certain words capitalised: "My SON TED ate raw FOOD and got SICK, then went to BED with me by his SIDE." With the time up, Lee went round the men one-by-one to which they all gave different answers. 4 Whilst one admitted that he hadn't even wrote anything down, another said they had picked "well" as their answers before someone else opted for "new". Unfortunately, all of them arrived at the incorrect answer. Lee then went on to reveal how the correct answer was in fact, sea. Hardest Quiz Show Questions Would you know the answers to some of quizzing TV's hardest questions Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Earlier this year, fans were left outraged after what they described as the "worst" question in the show's history. Host Jeremy Clarkson asked: 'From the 2000 awards ceremony onwards, the Best Actress Oscar has never been won by a woman whose surname begins with which one of these letters?' The multiple choice answers were between G, K, M and W. In the end, and with the £32,000 safe, player Glen had to make a guess and went for G. It turned out to be correct as Nicole Kidman, Frances McDormand and Kate Winslet are among the stars who have won the Best Actress gong since 2000. The 1% Club - Viewers of Lee Mack's popular ITV show were left dumbfounded by a question that also left the players perplexed. The query went as follows: "Edna's birthday is on the 6th of April and Jen's birthday falls on the 15th of October, therefore Amir's birthday must be the 'X' of January." It turns out the conundrum links the numbers with its position in the sentence, so 6th is the sixth word and 15th is the fifteenth word. Therefore, Amir's birthday is January 24th, corresponding to the 24th word in the sentence. The Chase - The ITV daytime favourite left fans scratching their heads when it threw up one of the most bizarre questions to ever grace the programme. One of the questions asked the player: "Someone with a nightshade intolerance should avoid eating what?" The options were - sweetcorn, potatoes, carrots - with Steve selecting sweetcorn but the correct answer was potatoes. 4
