Szrek P, Uchman A, Grygorczyk K, Salwa S, Dworczak P G
Polish Geological Institute-National Research Institute, 4 Rakowiecka Street, Warsaw, PL-00-975, Poland.
Institute of Geological Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Gronostajowa 3a, Kraków, 30-387, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2025 Aug 6;15(1):28808. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-14541-8.
A new trackway produced by crawling fishes, which includes imprints of the trunk, snout, tail, body drag traces, and pectoral fins, was discovered in the Lower Devonian (middle-upper Emsian) marginal marine deposits in the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland. The snout imprints are represented by a low-angle variant of the already described Osculichnus tarnowskae, which has generally been interpreted as a hunting trace of fishes. However, in this case, it is considered an imprint of a fish's snout, used for anchoring in the sediment during the locomotion of at least partially emerged fish. This compound trackway provides the first evidence of the previously unknown life behaviour and locomotion abilities of dipnoan fishes in the early stage of their evolution and documents a testing land mobility skills of vertebrates, predating by about 10 million years fully terrestrial tetrapods locomotion traces. Similar trackways are produced by extant lungfish during terrestrial locomotion. The trackway co-occurs with a new resting trace produced by a dipnoan fish supporting itself with one or two pairs of fins on the bottom.
在波兰圣十字山脉下泥盆统(埃姆斯阶中上部)边缘海相沉积中发现了一种由爬行鱼类形成的新足迹化石,其中包括躯干、吻部、尾部、身体拖痕和胸鳍的印记。吻部印记呈现为已描述的塔诺夫斯卡奥氏迹(Osculichnus tarnowskae)的低角度变体,该遗迹通常被解释为鱼类的捕食痕迹。然而,在这种情况下,它被认为是鱼吻部的印记,用于至少部分露出水面的鱼在移动过程中锚定在沉积物中。这种复合足迹化石首次证明了肺鱼在进化早期未知的生活行为和移动能力,并记录了脊椎动物陆地移动技能的尝试,比完全陆生的四足动物的运动痕迹早约1000万年。现存的肺鱼在陆地移动时也会产生类似的足迹化石。该足迹化石与一种新的休息痕迹共同出现,这种休息痕迹是由一条肺鱼用一对或两对鳍支撑身体在水底形成的。