Rock hyraxesMore commonly called “daisies” in southern Africa, they are fluffy, stocky creatures with short legs and discreet tails. They spend most of their time sunbathing on rocky outcrops.
Another thing they sometimes do is drag their butts along the ground. Dog owners know that this behavior can be a sign of parasitic infections; in hyraxes the cause is apparently less clear, but in sandy areas the action leaves distinct traces.
Footprints and footprints – ancient, fossilized – are what we study in African Center for Coastal Paleoscience as part of a technology development project on the south coast of Cape Town. Over the past few decades, we have discovered almost 400 vertebrate track sites on this coast, some of which are about 400,000 years old, in cemented dunes known as aeolianites from Pleistocene era. This era lasted from approximately 2.58 million years ago until approximately 11,700 years ago.
We create a picture of the environment of that period and how the animals and plants of that time lived.
Among our latest finds These are two fossilized footprints that appear to have been left by rock hyraxes a long time ago. One is a footprint and the other is a butt impression that may have something fossilized in it.
Our attention was brought to the likely location of the track by avid tracker Mike Fabricius, located near Walker Bay on the southern coast of the Cape. It's around 76,000 years. We found a probable butt impression east of Still Bay on the same coast, and it is most likely about 126,000 years old.
The butt imprint is the first fossil of its kind described anywhere in the world. Additionally, these are the only possible fossilized hyrax tracks that have ever been identified. In the world of paleontology, anything so unusual has an important meaning, and we feel privileged to be able to interpret them.
Interpretation of the drag sign
Dating on our sites is carried out using a method known as optically stimulated luminescencewhich works by analyzing when materials such as sand were last exposed to light.
The butt print is 95 cm. [37.4 inches] long and 13 cm. [5.1 inches] wide. It contains five parallel stripes. Its outer edges are slightly raised, and inside there is a protrusion 2 cm high. [0.8 inch] relief element, 10 cm by 9 cm. [4 by 3.5 inches]. Obviously, something was dragged along the surface when it consisted of loose sand.
We've looked at possible causes other than hyrax's buttocks. These included the leopard or the prey-pulling ancestor of man, or perhaps elephant drags its trunk. However, firstly, they would be expected to leave traces, and secondly, with such interpretations the raised element could not be explained.
But if it were a hyrax, it would make sense, because the butt mark would follow the marks and erase them. And the raised function can be coprolite: fused fossilized mass of hyrax droppings.
Old manure and urine
Rock hyraxes leave much more than just footprints and impact marks. Because they prefer rocky areas, their tracks are not common, but they polish rock surfaces to a brilliant shine. This is similar to what buffalos do on the North American prairies, creating “buffalo rubs stones“.
Hyraxes also leave deposits of urine and dung. Their urine concentrates urea and electrolytes, and they excrete large amounts of calcium carbonate. It cements and forms extensive whitish deposits on the surface of rocks. Because of their communal lifestyle, hyraxes often urinate in the same preferred locations for generations.
Their urine and dung often mix to form a substance known as hyraceum, a rocky mass that can accumulate into vast, dark, resinous deposits. Hyraseum has been used as a traditional medicine to treat various ailments, including epilepsyand for gynecological purposes.
Gyraceum may be tens of thousands of years old and may be considered an endangered, non-renewable resource. Discards that are sensitive to environmental changes and contain fossilized pollen and other evidence of ancient life are valuable natural archives For interpretation of past climate, vegetation and ecology.
Conceptualizing Hyraseum as a fossilized track, which apparently has not been done before, may help protect the species. undervalued resource.
Although fossilized urine is rare worldwide, there is a word to describe it: “urolith” to distinguish it from “urolith”.coprolite(fossilized poop). Hyraxes seem to make up the lion's share of the world's uroliths. At paleontology conferences, you can see students wearing sports T-shirts that brazenly say: “coprolite happens.” In southern Africa, a more appropriate term may be “urolitis occurs.”
Having understood the importance of the hind bone impressions, uroliths, coprolites and gyraseum, and having learned about the environment of rock hyraxes and other animals during the Pleistocene, we will never view these fascinating creatures in the same light again.
This edited article is republished from Talk under Creative Commons license. Read original article.
