Reply to discussion of “Defining the morphological quality of fossil footprints. Problems and principles of preservation in tetrapod ichnology with examples from the Palaeozoic to the present” by Marchetti et al. (2019)

Abstract

Tetrapod ichnology is undergoing a deep methodological and conceptual renovation, and it is natural that concept definitions and applications are still developing through healthy scientific discussions. The results of this discipline are remarkable and augment the skeletal record with a large quantity of useful palaeobiological and palaeoenvironmental data (e.g., Lockley, 1998a). In order to provide precise definitions and nomenclature to this field, Marchetti et al. (2019a) suggested revisions of the taxonomic and taphonomic concepts of tetrapod ichnology. These include the use of the term preservation in ichnotaxonomy, named morphological preservation. An updated numerical scale (from Belvedere and Farlow, 2016) based on morphological preservation was also proposed. It was applied to 21 examples spanning from the Carboniferous to the present-day, including footprints generated by a wide range of tetrapod producers, to show variability along trackways and within ichnotaxa and to identify the anatomy-consistent morphological features useful for ichnotaxonomy.