''Ichniotherium'' (meaning "marking creature") is an

ichnogenus An ichnotaxon (plural ichnotaxa) is "a taxon based on the fossilized work of an organism", i.e. the non-human equivalent of an artifact. ''Ichnotaxon'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''íchnos'') meaning "track" and English , itself derived from ...

tetrapod A tetrapod (; from Ancient Greek :wiktionary:τετρα-#Ancient Greek, τετρα- ''(tetra-)'' 'four' and :wiktionary:πούς#Ancient Greek, πούς ''(poús)'' 'foot') is any four-Limb (anatomy), limbed vertebrate animal of the clade Tetr ...

footprint Footprints are the impressions or images left behind by a person walking or running. Hoofprints and pawprints are those left by animals with hooves or paws rather than feet, while "shoeprints" is the specific term for prints made by shoes. The ...

s from between the Late

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

period to the Early

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...

period attributed to

diadectomorph Diadectomorpha is a clade of large tetrapods that lived in Euramerica during the Carboniferous and Early Permian periods and in Asia during Late Permian (Wuchiapingian), They have typically been classified as advanced reptiliomorphs (transitional ...

track-makers.Buchwitz M & Voigt S. (2018
On the morphological variability of Ichniotherium tracks and evolution of locomotion in the sistergroup of amniotes
PeerJ 6:e4346 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4346 These footprints are commonly found in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, and have also been identified in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. Three ichnospecies of ''Ichniotherium'' have been proposed as valid: ''I. cotta'', ''I. sphaerodactylum'', and ''I. praesidentis.'' In a 2007 study, the diadectid

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

Diadectes ''Diadectes'' (meaning ''crosswise-biter'') is an extinct genus of large reptiliomorphs or synapsids that lived during the early Permian period ( Artinskian- Kungurian stages of the Cisuralian epoch, between 290 and 272 million years ago). ''Dia ...

absitus'' was determined to be the track-maker associated with ''I. cotta'' tracks, and the related diadectid species '' Orobates pabsti'' was linked to ''I. praesidentis'' based on analysis of Lower

trackways and fossils skeletons in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. (2007, September 18). "Who Went There? Matching Fossil Tracks With Their Makers". ''ScienceDaily''. Retrieved February 21, 2018 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070915092239.htm

References

Trace fossils {{trace-fossil-stub