Ancient tracks are elephant herd (BBC) [View all]

[eppur_se_muova]

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC Nature

A seven-million-year-old trail of fossilised footprints in the Arabian desert was left by a herd of ancient elephants, according to scientists.

Researchers say the "trackways" reveal that animals that left them had a rich and complex social structure.

Just like modern elephant society, this consisted of family herds and of solitary male animals.

The study is published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Lead researcher Dr Faysal Bibi, a palaeontologist based at the University of Poitiers in France and the Museum of Natural History in Berlin, Germany, described the footprints as "fossilised behaviour".



***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17102135