Oldest Reptile Footprints Discovered in Australia

Discover the oldest known fossil footprints of a reptile-like creature unearthed in Australia, dating back 350 million years. This breakthrough reveals a rapid transition from aquatic to terrestrial life, surpassing previous records by 30 million years.
In this video, learn how scientists in Australia found these ancient prints on a sandstone slab, showing reptile-like feet with long toes and hooked claws—key evidence of the first fully land-dwelling vertebrates. Paleontologist Per Ahlberg from Uppsala University explains that these claws indicate an animal evolved solely for land, unlike earlier fish and amphibians tied to water for reproduction. Dating to around 350 million years ago, this discovery shortens the timeline for terrestrial locomotion by millions of years, with the creature estimated at 2.5 feet long, resembling a modern monitor lizard. At that time, the region was hot, steamy, and part of the supercontinent Gondwana, as vast forests emerged.
The findings, published in Nature, push back our understanding of life's evolution on land, originally thought to start around 400 million years ago. Dive into the details of this game-changing paleontology breakthrough and what it means for evolutionary science.
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