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The earth ’s oldest elephant tracks have now been give away , 7 - million - year - old footprints in the Arabian Desert , researchers say .
These prehistoric footstep , likely the work of some 13 four - tusk elephant antecedent , are the earliest direct grounds of how theancestors of modern elephantsinteracted socially , and the oldest grounds of an elephant herd .
A reconstruction of theStegotetrabelodon syrticusherd that likely made the tracks in the Arabian Desert. [Read full story]
" Basically , this is fossilized behavior , " said investigator Faysal Bibi , a vertebrate paleontologist at the Museum for Natural chronicle in Berlin . " This is an perfectly unique website , a really rare opportunity in the fossil record that lets you see beast conduct in a elbow room you could n’t otherwise do with bones or tooth . "
The site , screw as Mleisa 1 , is in the United Arab Emirates . The region then was home to a great diversity of animals , including elephants , hippopotamuses , antelope , Giraffa camelopardalis , pigs , scamp , gnawer , little and heavy carnivore , ostriches , turtles , crocodile and fish . These were sustained by a very large river flowing slowly through the country , along which flourished vegetation , including prominent tree diagram . The fauna resembled those from Africa during the same time , though there are also similarities with Asian and European species of that period .
Fossil trackways in the region have been long screw to locals , and were taken to be the prints of dinosaurs orgiants of ancient myth . It was not until January 2011 , when researchers mapped the area from the air for the first time , " that we pull in what we had and how we could go about studying it , " Bibi said . [ The Creatures of Cryptozoology ]
" Once we saw it aerially , it became a much different and clearer history , " said researcher Brian Kraatz at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona , Calif. " consider the whole situation in one blastoff mean we could last empathize what was happening . "
The footprints pass over an sphere of 12.3 acres ( 5 hectares ) . This is about equal to nine U.S. football fields , seven soccer field , or the stem of the Great Pyramid of Giza .
" The trackways are visually sensational , " say researcher Andrew Hill at the University of Poitiers in France . " It is quite obvious to anyone , without any technical knowledge , that these are thefootprints of very bombastic beast , and to learn that they are over 6 million years quondam present a visitor with the whizz of walk back in time . "
The researchers noted that while these prehistorical titans were proboscideans like New elephants , they likely looked quite unlike . Of the three kinds offossil proboscidean speciesin the area at that fourth dimension , the one that most in all probability made the trackways wasStegotetrabelodon syrticus , the early known member of the elephant sept , " which contain tusks in both its upper and lower jaws , " Bibi tell LiveScience .
The trackways stretch up to about 850 feet ( 260 meter ) long , making them " the most extensive ever recorded for mammals , and to consider them is to be enchant 7 million years back in time when herd of four - tusk primitive elephant and other relate giant roamed a surface-active agent and more vegetated Arabian Peninsula , " said palaeontologist William Sanders at the University of Michigan , who did not take part in the survey . [ Photos of Elephant Trackways ]
Actually map these footsteps show challenging , since the individual course are each only about 15 inch ( 40 centimetre ) wide , too little to show up in satellite imagination . To do so , researcher get on a sac digital photographic camera onto a kite , stitching the century of pictures it took into a single big mosaic image that gave a broad overview of the site .
Analysis of the footsteps suggests they belonged to a herd of at least 13 elephants of different size of it and eld that walk through clay , leaving behind tracks that indurate , were bury , and then re - exposed by eating away .
The research worker also light upon tracks from a solitary male traveling in a different direction from the ruck . These suggest the extinct behemoth divided into unfrequented and social groups , just as elephant do today . Also , these ancient pachyderms might have structured themselves along crinkle of sex just as their advanced relative do , with the males impart the herd to survive alone .
" Like thehuman handprints in palaeolithic caves , animal trackways crystallize in metre [ the ] identity and behavior of the being that made them , and move over rarified brainwave about these organisms , which dodo bones alone can not furnish , " Sanders say .
The scientists detail their findings online tomorrow ( Feb. 22 ) in the journal Biology Letters .
