Latest news with #CharlesHelm
Daily Maverick
15-05-2025
- Science
- Daily Maverick
First fossil pangolin tracks discovered in South Africa
No fossilised pangolin tracks had been recorded anywhere in the world until a track was found in South Africa, dated to between 90,000 and 140,000 years ago. A team of scientists who study vertebrate fossil tracks and traces on South Africa's southern Cape coast have identified the world's first fossil pangolin trackway, with the help of Indigenous Master Trackers from Namibia. Ichnologists Charles Helm, Clive Thompson and Jan De Vynck tell the story. What did you find? A fossil trackway east of Still Bay in South Africa's Western Cape province was found in 2018 by a colleague and was brought to our attention. It was found on the surface of a loose block of aeolianite rock (formed from hardened sand) that had come to rest near the high-tide mark in a private nature reserve. We studied it but our cautious approach required that we could not confidently pin down what had made the track. It remained enigmatic. How did you eventually identify it? In 2023, we were working with two Ju/'hoansi San colleagues from north-eastern Namibia, #oma Daqm and /uce Nǂamce, who have been interpreting tracks in the Kalahari all their lives. They are certified as Indigenous Master Trackers and we consider them to be among the finest trackers in the world today. We had called on their expertise to help us understand more about the fossil tracks on the Cape south coast. One example of the insights they provided was of hyena tracks, and we have published on this together. We showed them the intriguing trackway, which consisted of eight tracks and two scuff marks made, apparently, by the animal's tail. They examined the track-bearing surface at length, conversed with one another for some time, and then made their pronouncement: the trackway had been registered by a pangolin. This was an astonishing claim, as no fossilised pangolin tracks had previously been recorded anywhere in the world. It also confirms that pangolins were once distributed across a larger range than they are now. We then created three-dimensional digital models of the trackway, using a technique called photogrammetry. We shared these images with other tracking and pangolin experts in southern Africa (like CyberTracker, Tracker Academy, the African Pangolin Working Group, wildlife guides and a pangolin researcher at the Tswalu Foundation). There were no dissenting voices: not surprisingly, it was agreed that our San colleagues were highly likely correct in their interpretation. There is something really special about a fossil trackway, compared with fossil bones – it seems alive, as if the animal could have registered the tracks yesterday, rather than so long ago. What are the characteristics of pangolin tracks? Pangolins are mostly bipedal (walking on two legs), with a distinctive, relatively ponderous gait. Track size and shape, the distance between the tracks, and the width of the trackway all provide useful clues, as do the tail scuff marks and the absence of obvious digit impressions. A pangolin hindfoot track, in the words of our Master Tracker colleagues, looks as if 'a round stick had been poked into the ground'. And being slightly wider at the front end, it has a slightly triangular shape. Our Master Tracker colleagues are familiar with the tracks of Temminck's pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) in the Kalahari, which was the probable species that registered the tracks that are now evident in stone on the Cape coast. Other trackmaker candidates, such as a serval with its slim straddle, were considered, but could be excluded or regarded as far less likely. How old is the fossil track, and how do you know? The surface would have consisted of loose dune sand when the pangolin walked on it. Now it's cemented into rock. We work with a colleague, Andrew Carr, at the University of Leicester in the UK. He uses a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence to obtain the age of rocks in the area. The results he provided for the region suggest that these tracks were made between 90,000 and 140,000 years ago, during the 'Ice Ages'. For much of this time, the coastline might have been as much as 100km south of its present location. What's important about this find? Firstly, this demonstrates what you can uncover when you bring together different kinds of knowledge: our Western scientific approach combined with the remarkable skill sets of the Master Trackers, which have been inculcated in them from a very young age. Without them, the trackway would have remained enigmatic, and would have deteriorated in quality due to erosion without the trackmaker ever being identified. Secondly, we hope it brings attention to the plight of the pangolin in modern times. There are eight extant pangolin species in the world today, and all are considered to be threatened with extinction. Pangolin meat is regarded as a delicacy, pangolin scales are used in traditional medicines, and pangolins are among the most trafficked wild animals on earth. Large numbers in Africa are hunted for their meat every year. What does the future hold? Our San Indigenous Master Tracker colleagues have just completed their third visit to the southern Cape coast, thanks to funding from the Discovery Wilderness Trust. The results have once again been both unexpected and stupendous, and their tracking skills have again been demonstrated to be unparalleled. Many more publications will undoubtedly ensue, bringing their expertise to the attention of the wider scientific community and anyone interested in our fossil heritage or in ancient hunter-gatherer traditions. We hope that our partnership continues to lead to our mutual benefit as we probe the secrets of the Pleistocene epoch by following the spoor of ancient animals. DM This story was first published in The Conversation. Charles Helm is a Research Associate at the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University. Clive Thompson is a Research Associate at the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University. Jan Carlo De Vynck is an honorary researcher at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.
Miami Herald
17-04-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
100 million-year-old footprints — first of their kind — found in Canada. See them
More than two decades ago in the small town of Tumbler Ridge, nestled in the Canadian Rockies, two young boys found dinosaur tracks. They were discovered in 2000, and Charles Helm, scientific adviser at the Tumbler Ridge Museum, said several of the tracks had been discovered in the years since, prompting him to invite paleontologists to come and take a look, according to an April 14 news release from scientific publisher Taylor & Francis Group. In 2023, researcher Victoria Arbour of the Royal BC Museum, along with teams from the Tumbler Ridge Museum and the Tumbler Ridge UNESCO Global Geopark finally studied the tracks — and realized they belonged to a species new to science. Arbour had seen photos of the footprints a few years earlier, and said 'I thought they were really strange and interesting looking and I was really curious about them,' she told CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Then she saw them in person. 'And I got really excited,' Arbour told the news outlet. 'I was like, 'You know, I think the only thing these really can be … is an ankylosaurid.'' Ankylosaurs fall into two groups: one with a flexible tail and four toes on each back foot, and a second with a 'sledgehammer-like tail club' and three toes, according to the release. These footprints were three-toed and didn't match any previous records of ankylosaurs found in North America, according to a study published on the discovery April 14 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 'While we don't know exactly what dinosaur that made (the) footprints looked like, we know that it would have been about (16.4-19.6 feet) long, spiky and armoured, and with a stiff tail or a full tail club,' Arbour said in the release. 'Ankylosaurs are my favorite group of dinosaurs to work on, so being able to identify new examples of these dinosaurs in British Columbia is really exciting for me.' The footprints themselves are about 10 inches long and nearly the same distance wide, 'crescentic in form' and five manus, or toes on the front feet, and three pes, or toes on the back feet, according to the study. The new species was named Ruopodosaurus clava, meaning 'the tumbled-down lizard with a club/mace,' researchers said, noting where the tracks were found and the tail shape of the distinctive dinosaurs, according to the study. The tracks are believed to be the only tracks from this group ever discovered anywhere in the world, according to the researchers. 'The tracks date back to the middle of the Cretaceous period, about 100 to 94 million years ago. No bones from ankylosaurids have been found in North America from about 100 to 84 million years ago, leading to some speculation that ankylosaurids had disappeared from North America during this time,' according to the release. The tracks themselves show that multiple animals were walking together, according to the study, and the timeline of footprints shows multiple species of ankylosaur co-existed in the same time period. In addition to the tracks in Tumbler Ridge, more tracks in a remote region northwest called Bullmoose Creek were also discovered, according to the study. Scott Persons, a paleontologist studying similar species and not involved in the study, told CBC the new tracks show the ankylosaurs once thought of as 'squat' or like a 'coffee table' actually had 'a surprisingly bird-like gait' and they lined up their feet like 'supermodels on a runway.' 'This track record shows us the coffee table analogy is a little bit flawed,' Persons told CBC. 'The obvious question is: What do these animals look like? All we have are the feet.' Tumbler Ridge is in east-central British Columbia, Canada's western-most territory. The research team includes Helm, Arbour, Martin G. Lockley, Eamon Drysdale and Roy Rule.
