first vertebrate tracks

GRMorton@aol.com
Thu, 6 Jul 1995 07:02:10 -0400

Recently Ashby Camp questioned my rejection of a reported tetrapod
trackway(Anne Warren, Robert Jupp and Barrie Bolton,
"Earliest tetrapod trackway," _Alcheringa_ 10: 183-86 [1986]). Apparently I
am not the only one who has the same objections to this trackway. I ran into
the following. Keith Stewart Thompson wrote:
"As long as the geological age of the reported 'Early Devonian' trackways
from Australia is tentative and no skeletal remains aree known, to conclude
that tetrapods arose in, and radiated from, East Gondwana is premature." K.
S. Thompson, "The Origin of the Tetrapods," American Journal of Science
293-A, p. 52 [1993]

and
"I am personally inclined to discount the 'Early Devonian' trackway from
Australia and would place the origin of tetrapods at late Middle Devonian."
IBID., p. 53

glenn