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Neil Armstrong left the first footmark on the Sun Myung Moon , on July 20 , 1969 . But what about Earth — when did animal first leave footprint here ?

While we do n’t acknowledge on the nose when brute first leave racetrack on our planet , the oldest footprint ever found were left between 551 million and 541 million year ago during theEdiacaran period , a new study receive . That ’s 100 of one thousand thousand of years before dinosaur started rove Earth , about 245 million years ago . The unexampled findings suggest animals evolve naive " weapon " and " legs " sooner than antecedently believe .

Oldest footprints

The trackways and burrows found in southern China’s Dengying Formation, which dates to the Ediacaran period.

The odd - looking prehistoric trackways show two rows of embossment that resemble a series of repeated footprint , the researchers said . The scientist found the trackways in the Dengying Formation , a site in the Yangtze Gorges area of southernChina . [ Image Gallery : 25 Amazing Ancient wolf ]

The trackways ' feature indicate that a bilaterian beast — that is , a brute with bilateral symmetricalness that has a read/write head at one remnant , a back end at the other , and a symmetrical rightfulness and left side — made the tracks . This ocean - dwelling animal had paired appendages that elicit its consistence above the ocean floor , the footmark left behind by its multiple feet hint .

These footmark are situate next to fossilized tunnel . This mean that the mystery animal might have periodically labour into the sea flooring ’s sediment and microbic matts , possibly to mine for oxygen and nutrient , the researchers said .

a researcher compares fossil footprints to a modern iguana foot

Both thefootprints and the borrowsare know as " touch fossils , " a terminus that pertain to fossilized remnants that animals leave behind , such as fossilized turd , rather than fossils of the animals themselves . The newfound tracing fossil are some of the early known evidence for animal appendages on record . Until now , it was reckon that bilaterian brute , such as arthropod and annelid worms , first appeared during theCambrian detonation , between 541 million and 510 million years ago , although some scientists suspected that these creature evolve originally .

Now , the discovery of the trackways and tunnel register that animals with appendage lived during the Ediacaran period , the researcher said .

The field was published online today ( June 6 ) in thejournal Science Advances .

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