The unusual trackways left by these animals at Solnhofen were originally thought to have been made by birds or pterosaurs, since they included a cross-shaped marking comparable with the impression of a typical bird foot. Eventually they were correctly identified as arthropod footprints and named Kouphichnium walchi, as proved by some remarkable 'death traces' showing a Mesolimulus circling round on itself before dying. The last leg of more advanced horseshoe crabs is modified into a so-called 'pusher' which consists of four plates at the tip which push against the soft sediment rather like a snow-shoe. This was what left the unusual bird-like footprints.
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