Track-trackmaker correlation of co-occurring gorgonopsian bones and footprints from the early-?middle Permian of equatorial Pangaea
Matamales Andreu, Rafel (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Mujal, Eudald (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Galobart, Àngel (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Fortuny, Josep (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)

Fecha:	2025
Resumen:	Therapsids are a group of terrestrial tetrapods that gave rise to mammals during the Triassic. The oldest confirmed record of this group dates to the Permian, showing the acquisition of a new suite of morphological traits, drifting away from the 'reptilian' body plan. One of these modifications affected the girdle and limb joint anatomy and had a profound impact on posture and, by extension, locomotion. Therefore, trackways can be used as a fairly reliable proxy to track down the mode and tempo of those changes. However, references to tracks (and skeletal remains) attributed to therapsids from deposits encompassing the lower-middle Permian boundary are still scarce in the literature. Here we describe a new ichnotaxon, Algarpes ferus igen. et isp. nov. , from the palaeoequatorial lower/?middle Permian of Mallorca (western Mediterranean), correlating it to gorgonopsian trackmakers. This is because the pes tracks match, in terms of proportions and size, with the gorgonopsian body fossils found in the same sedimentological succession, in the Port des Canonge Formation. The narrow gauge and the wide values of pace angulation of the studied trackways suggest a primitive upright posture with a parasagittal mode of locomotion. These results shed light on the palaeoequatorial tetrapod communities and their importance in the diversification of early therapsids, as well as on the evolution of locomotion in this group, showing that modifications that would result in the 'mammalian' gait were already underway by the early/?middle Permian.
Ayudas:	Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades FPU17/01922 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-01184 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-01192 Agencia Estatal de Investigación RYC2021-032857-I
Derechos:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Lengua:	Anglès
Documento:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Materia:	Western Mediterranean ; Mallorca ; Therapsida ; Gorgonopsia ; Ichnology ; Locomotion ; Functional prevalence
Publicado en:	Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Vol. 677 (November 2025) , art. 113174, ISSN 1872-616X

DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2025.113174

15 p, 19.8 MB

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