OMFBiology

In the Steps of Ancient Elephants

Brian Switek tells a story of a set of ancient tracks in what is now the UAE. They belonged to large prehistoric animals, and they were a mystery to us until only recently:

“One day, sometime around seven million years ago, a herd of bizarre, four-tusked elephants crossed the desert which stretched over what is now the United Arab Emirates. Thirteen of the behemoths plodded along together, perhaps moving towards one of the wide, slow rivers which nourished stands of trees in the otherwise the arid region. Sometime later, a solitary animal trudged across the herd’s path in another direction. We know all this because paleontologists have found the tracks of these massive animals.

Scientists were not the first people to wonder about the fossil footprints. The huge tracksite – which stretches over an area equivalent to seven soccer fields – had been a source of speculation among local Emirati people for years. Dinosaurs and even mythical giants were thought to have been responsible for the potholes. It wasn’t until the spring of 2001 that a resident of the area, Mubarak bin Rashid Al Mansouri, led researchers of the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey to the immense fossil field.

Dinosaurs had not created the tracks. The snapshot of time represented by the trace fossils came from the Miocene, sometime between six and eight million years ago – all the gargantuan non-avian dinosaurs had died out over 60 million years previously. Based upon the geological context and what had been found in the area before, fossil elephants were quickly identified as the trackmakers.”

Source: jtotheizzoe