Footprint

Footprint

Footprints (or footmarks) are the impressions or images left behind by a person walking or running. Hoofprints and pawprints are those left by animals with hooves or paws rather than feet, while "shoeprints" is the specific term for prints made by shoes. They may either be indentations in the ground or something placed onto the surface that was stuck to the bottom of the foot. A "trackway" is set of footprints in soft earth left by a life-form; animal tracks are the footprints, hoofprints, or pawprints of an animal.

Footprints can be followed when tracking during a hunt or can provide evidence of activities. Some footprints remain unexplained, with several famous stories from mythology and legend. Others have provided evidence of prehistoric life and behaviours.

Read more about Footprint:  Footprints in Detective Work, Ancient Footprints, Footprints in Myth and Legend, Footprints in Popular Culture

Famous quotes containing the word footprint:

    An oblong puddle inset in the coarse asphalt; like a fancy footprint filled to the brim with quicksilver; like a spatulate hole through which you can see the nether sky. Surrounded, I note, by a diffuse tentacled black dampness where some dull dun dead leaves have stuck. Drowned, I should say, before the puddle had shrunk to its present size.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own.
    Arthur S. Eddington (1882–1944)

    Tom: Well, tell me, Gusto, you’re so smart. How could I erase a footprint that looks as if it was left by a heel?
    Augusta: Well, that sounds almost human.
    Billy Wilder (b. 1906)