Animal tracks are the imprints left behind in soil, snow, mud, or other ground surfaces that an animal walks across. Animal tracks are used by hunters in tracking their prey and by naturalists to identify animals living in a given area.
Books are commonly used to identify animal tracks, which may look different based on the weight of the particular animal and the type of strata in which they are made.
Tracks can be fossilized over millions of years. It is for this reason we are able to see fossilized dinosaur tracks in some types of rock formations. These types of fossils are called trace fossils since they are a trace of an animal left behind rather than the animal itself.
Famous quotes containing the words animal and/or tracks:
“To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)