Large Pleistocene avian tracks on the Cape south coast of South Africa

Abstract

Prior to the inception of the Cape south-coast ichnology project, only one avian tracksite had been reported from South Africa. An additonal twenty-nine sites have now been identified. Although there are limitations and challenges inherent in the study of fossil avian tracks, these tracks have the capacity to complement the traditional skeletal fossil record. Six of these tracksites exhibit the tracks of large avian trackmakers. In some of these cases, the tracks are larger than would be anticipated from an understanding of extant birds in the region and from the skeletal fossil record. This raises the possibility of large Pleistocene forms of extant taxa, and of Late Pleistocene avian extinctions. In one case, track preservation was of exceptional quality, and allowed the identification of previously unreported flamingo feeding traces.