P.E.I. footprint fossil could rewrite evolution timeline, researchers say

A footprint fossil from long before dinosaurs roamed is raising big questions on P.E.I., Maria Sarrouh reports.

A footprint fossil from long before dinosaurs roamed is raising big questions on P.E.I.

It dates back about 290 million years, to the Permian Period. But researchers say the animal they think likely left it has no fossil record that early, suggesting this may be the oldest known example and could shift the evolutionary timeline back.

“I was dumbfounded,” said Patrick Brunet, a self-taught citizen scientist who found the fossil along the shore of Hillsborough Bay.

For five years, Brunet has combed the Island, checking places that usually produce finds. On an eventful day six months ago, at a spot that had never delivered, he found the biggest footprint he’s ever seen. About 25 centimetres wide, it’s larger than many tracks from that period.

“That’s the mystery and that’s the big question and that’s what going to be studied,” Brunet said.

Island investigators will make the case that it is Pachypes, a type of track typically linked to Pareiasaurus, stocky, plant-eating reptiles. That’s where the timeline gets tricky.

“The only Cinderella that fits this particular slipper, didn’t appear in the fossil record for another 30 to 40 million years,” said John Calder, an advisor to the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation, and also to Parks Canada.

Calder explains the creatures alive during the Permian Period were usually smaller - cat- or dog-sized, lizard-like animals. But this footprint is about the size of a dinner plate. If they’re right about it being a Pareiasaurus, that means they were walking the Earth much earlier than experts thought.

“And that means that they had to evolve from something else earlier than we thought,” Calder said. “It changes our drawing of the tree of life.”

A team of international scientists, including Calder and Brunet, will continue working to confirm what’s behind the print. The team will soon start drafting a paper to put their case through scientific review. They’ve already consulted colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.

Brunet said he plans to go back to the area, and to keep searching other sites for more evidence to support the find.

“We have one spectacular footprint, but there’s no reason why we couldn’t find more.”

Calder said it’s part of his job to answer inquiries from Islanders who find interesting rocks. Sometimes it is not a fossil. Sometimes it is. It’s important to present them to experts, he adds, or a piece of history could end up as someone’s doorstop.

“We’re constantly unearthing, literally, the record of life on the planet before us, and everybody can make a contribution. That’s really cool.”

The exact spot where the fossil was found is being kept secret for its protection. It’s the latest in a wave of prehistoric finds putting P.E.I. on the paleontology map. The Island’s red rocks hold the best record in Canada for the Permian Period, according to the provincial government.