User:Abyssal/Soltykow dinosaur tracksite

The Soltykow dinosaur track site is an area near the town of Soltykow, Poland where dinosaurs left behind footprints during the Hettangian age of the Early Jurassic epoch. The rocks preserving these footprints are part of the Holy Cross Mountains. An unusual diversity of dinosaur groups left behind their footprints here. Many of the dinosaur tracks at Soltykow have been described as new ichnospecies. Polish ichnologist Gerard Gierlinski described several of these in a 1991 scientific paper.

Tracks

One track Gierlinski named in this paper was Grallator (Eubrontes) soltykovensis. The epithet of this ichnospecies was named in honor of Soltykow itself. The G. (E.) soltykovensis tracks were laid down during the early part of the Hettangian age. The same paper named another Grallator species, G. (Grallator) zvierzi, after the head of Warsaw's Geological Institute museum, Jadwiga, Zwierz. The G. (G.) zvierzi were laid down slightly more recently, during the late Hettangian. Gierlinski has observed that G. (G.) zvierzi is very similar to dinosaur tracks preserved in other areas of the world. The US state of Connecticut preserves the similar ichnospecies Grallator cuneatus and G. tenuis. France also has a similar Grallator species called G. variabilis.

Tracks of the ichnogenus Anomoepus are also present in the Soltykow region. Sometimes these footprints are associated with foreprints bearing four or five digit impressions. This would be the wrong number of digits for a theropod. The most likely candidate for the trackmaker of Anomoepus tracks are ornithopod dinosaurs. Gierlinski described the Anomoepus tracks from Soltykow as a new ichnospecies, A. pienkovskii. This species honors Gregorz, Pienkovskii, a Polish geologist. The Anomoepus of Soltykow have a larger foreprint than those in Connecticut. Like G. (G.) zvierzi, the Soltykow Anomoepus are of late Hettangian age.

The Soltykow region is also home to late Hettangian tracks of more contentious classification and origins. Gierlinski described these as the new ichnospecies Moyenosauripus karazevskii. The epithet honors Wladyslaw Karazewski. Although Gierlinski saw M. karazevskii as similar to Anomoepus, he saw the former as distinguished by having impressions left by two rather than three pads under the third toe. Authors Lockley and Meyer have disputed Gierlinski's referral of M. karazevskii to Moyenisauripus and the idea that these tracks were left by an ornithopod. Instead, they think the tracks were left by an early thyreophoran, or armored dinosaur, and should be classified elsewhere. Similar early thyreophoran tracks of better preservational quality are known from France.

References

• Lockley, Martin G.; Meyer, C. A. (2000). Dinosaur Tracks and other fossil footprints of Europe. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-10710-2.