Pachypes, Leonardi, Conti, Leonardi, Mariotti, and Nicosia, 1975

Marchetti, Lorenzo, Belvedere, Matteo & Mietto, Paolo, 2017, Lopingian tetrapod footprints from the Venetian Prealps, Italy: New discoveries in a largely incomplete panorama, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 62 (4), pp. 801-817 : 807

Pachypes isp.

Fig. 5 .

Material.—MCV 3, left manual track, preserved in convex hyporelief; Ulbe ( Italy), Lopingian.

Description.—Left manual imprint preserved as convex hyporelief long about 150 mm, and wide about 200 mm, with a broad palm showing a convex proximal margin, and short and sturdy digits with rounded terminations, continuously connected with the palm. The digit V is missing, digits III and IV are the longest, digits II–IV are bent inward. Footprint functionality is on digits I–III and on the medial part of the palm.

Remarks.—The broad rounded palm and the digit morphology, relative length and arrangement are characteristic of Pachypes Leonardi, Conti, Leonardi, Mariotti, and Nicosia, 1975 , established from a single pedal imprint from the Val Gardena Sandstone of the Bletterbach locality of the Dolomites ( Italy). Although trackways are missing, an abundant record from the type locality, including complete pes and manus, pes-manus couples and incomplete step cycles showing a complete range of preservation and size allows us to thoroughly confirm the validity of this ichnotaxon ( Valentini et al. 2008, 2009). Here we confirm the determination of Mietto (1981) for the material of the Venetian Prealps. The material described from the Italian Carnian Alps (Dalla Vecchia 2013) and Russia ( Surkov et al. 2007) does not show sufficient morphologic details to allow a determination, and the ichnotaxon Pachypes primus ( Gubin et al. 2003) sensu Valentini et al. (2009) has to be considered a nomen dubium. Recently, Pachypes has been described from the Lopingian of Morocco ( Voigt et al. 2010) and Niger ( Smith et al. 2015). This type of track is confidently referred to pareiasaurian parareptile trackmakers ( Leonardi et al. 1975; Valentini et al. 2008).

Figures

Fig. 5. Pareiasaurian parareptile trace Pachypes isp. (MCV 3) from Ulbe (Italy), Lopingian. Left manual imprint showing digits I–IV, convex hyporelief. Photo (A), interpretive drawing (B), false-color depth map (C), contour lines (D). Scale bar 10 mm.