Comments on: Ancient Mammal Tracks Discovered

By: DWA

DWA — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:03:07 +0000

CI: guess I’m saying “knowledge” is having the mammal in your hand; skinning it, there’s the skeleton; there it is, and here are some tracks at the end of which we found one, that look like those feet…

In this sense, we speculate, not know, because we never had the real actual animal in front of us. (When they can’t even but speculate on the species, they don’t have the foot.) I’m not complaining about the conclusion. Educated speculation is fine by me. Sure beats saying: it’s just impressions in a rock, could be anything. Just that the incredulity that attends some other things (at which you hinted) for which by comparison we have a lot of evidence I find, well, funny.

By: CryptoInformant 2.0

CryptoInformant 2.0 — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:46:43 +0000

I’m not sure “speculation” is the right term, DWA – I see speculation as the act of pulling something out of a hat and waving it around in the air yelling “I caught one! I caught one!”.
Whatever you want to call it, what paleontologists generally do with behavioral issues and the such is to take a long, hard look at the tag that gives detailed instructions on how to wash the hat, pulling something out of the hat, and saying, “Does that look like a polar bear to you?”. Still has a good chance of being wrong, but at least it looks like they’re doing something scientific.

(As for stuff like footprints, that’s not speculation – they have the foot, and they have the print. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that a foot with three toes will make a three-toed track [though it did take a few to figure out what the absence of tail-drag marks meant for the theory that dinosaurs walked around dragging their tails].)

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:21:33 +0000

CI: yes, but.

I think – not getting into that topic on this thread – that you know why I think this is funny. At least your post hints at it.

It is hard to remember sometimes that everything we ‘know’ about prehistoric animals is speculation. Educated, fine. But speculation nonetheless.

By: CryptoInformant 2.0

CryptoInformant 2.0 — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:19:44 +0000

DWA – Well, animals tend to follow certain patterns with their track shapes – mammals that were around then tended to have blunter toes than those of dinosaurs of comparable size and, also, were not bipedal, whereas any adult dinosaur capable of making a track this small would almost certainly be a biped. Given these things we know about tracks from this time period, and especially the fact that we know at least one species of mammal capable of making a track like this was in the area the track is from in the general time range it is from, I don’t see the identification of it as a mammal track as too much of a leap.

By: DWA

DWA — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:54:19 +0000

shumway 10973: GREAT question, and one that leaped into my mind the moment I saw the photo.

CI 2.0: Yes, but. All we have is that impression – one many wouldn’t have recognized as a track – and some others that I presume were no better because this is the one that got photographed. And look at the leap that’s made.

Just given some other track evidence I could talk about here but won’t (but CI does ), I just find it funny, that’s all. Way funny.

By: CryptoInformant 2.0

CryptoInformant 2.0 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:36:32 +0000

Shumway – Well, the shape of the print is one indicator – dinosaurs that small usually have three-toed, birdlike tracks.

By: cryptidsrus

cryptidsrus — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:50:53 +0000

Good question, Shumway10973. You’re a good “pupil.”

Had not thought of that myself. Tiny dinosaur, maybe???

Gotta sit next to you in the classroom from now on.

By: shumway10973

shumway10973 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:36:25 +0000

(hand raised) I’ve got a question, teacher….How do they know it was a mammal? Really all they can say for sure is that some really, really small creature ventured thru when the environment was right for its foot prints to be preserved. Although, that is quite small. I would probably miss that one.

By: CryptoInformant 2.0

CryptoInformant 2.0 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:00:47 +0000

This is certainly an interesting find, at least to me, given that I have been interested in prehistoric life much longer than I have been interested in cryptozoology. The tracks shown in the pictures seem pretty well preserved – no worse than many Sasquatch tracks.