‘Oldest footprints on Earth’ found

Tracks left by tiny animals that crawled in sea-shore mud around 550 million years ago are the oldest footprints on Earth, say scientists.

Mystery surrounds the onemillimetre long creatures that made the prints, since no trace of their bodies has been found.

Scientists believe they may have been a type of arthropod, the family of animals with jointed limbs that includes insects and crustaceans, or something akin to a legged worm. What is known is that the creatures burrowed as well as walked, were “bilaterian” – meaning they had pairs of matching appendages – and appear to have been on the clumsy side.

Their fossilised trackways and burrows were discovered in the Yangtze Gorges area of South China in a rock formation dating back between 541 and 551 million years.

Previously no evidence of limbed animals has been found that pre-dates the “Cambrian Explosion” about 510541 million years ago.