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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →No: the Polish fish tracks are not 10 million years old. They date to the Lower Devonian, more than 400 million years ago. The “about 10 million years” refers to how much earlier the tracks may record vertebrate movement in semi-terrestrial conditions than the earliest traces of fully terrestrial tetrapod locomotion, according to a 2025 study in Scientific Reports.
What the Polish fish tracks show
In a 2025 study, paleontologists described a compound trackway from Lower Devonian (Emsian) marginal-marine deposits at Ujazd and Kopiec in Poland’s Holy Cross Mountains. The authors attribute it to a dipnoan—a lungfish—and interpret it as evidence that the fish moved in very shallow water or across exposed sediment while at least partly out of the water. The study’s title calls the traces evidence of early adaptations for vertebrates to move on land; it does not describe a fish walking on dry land like a modern land animal.
The authors named two trace fossils: Reptanichnus acutori, interpreted as a locomotion trace, and Broomichnium ujazdensis, interpreted as resting impressions. The article describes the compound trackway as “a compound locomotion trace attributed to dipnoan fishes.” Read the primary study in Scientific Reports.
How researchers interpreted the traces
These are trace fossils—impressions left by an animal—not a fossil skeleton of the fish that made them. The trackmaker’s identity and behavior are interpretations drawn from the shapes and association of the traces, their geological setting, and comparisons with living lungfish.
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Body, fin and snout impressions
The authors identify a sinuous or nearly straight depression as a body trace, alongside narrow furrows they attribute to fins. They also interpret impressions as marks from the fish’s snout pressing into sediment. In their account, the snout could have helped the fish anchor itself and gain leverage as it moved.
Why the authors infer movement out of water
The authors argue that the traces lack a typical swimming trace and instead resemble marks made by living lungfish when they crawl on land. Together with the body, fin and snout impressions and the shallow-water or exposed-sediment setting, that comparison supports their interpretation of movement when the fish was at least partly emerged. It is an inference from the preserved traces, not a direct observation of the animal’s behavior.
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For their documentation, the researchers report studying a roughly 30 m² surface at Ujazd and a roughly 15 m² surface at Kopiec, photographing and 3D-scanning traces. Casts and original specimens were deposited at the Geological Museum of the Polish Geological Institute—National Research Institute. The surface areas refer to documented rock surfaces, not numbers of individual tracks.
What “10 million years earlier” means
The study’s “about 10 million years” comparison is a reported lead over traces of locomotion by fully terrestrial tetrapods. It is not the age of the Polish tracks. The fish traces are Lower Devonian and more than 400 million years old; the paper does not use the comparison to say that the fish itself lived only 10 million years ago.
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The finding matters because it suggests that a vertebrate outside the true tetrapod lineage may have shown locomotor behavior associated with semi-terrestrial conditions before the later record of fully terrestrial tetrapod locomotion. The paper frames dipnoans as a sister group independent of the true tetrapod lineage. These fish should not be described as direct ancestors of tetrapods: the tracks speak to an early behavior, not a demonstrated ancestor-descendant relationship.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How this differs from Poland’s 2010 trackway discovery
The 2025 dipnoan traces are separate from the trackways reported in 2010 at Zachełmie, also in Poland. That earlier study described rocks about 395 million years old and argued that tetrapods were present earlier than body fossils had shown. The two discoveries have different ages, trackmakers and interpretations: the 2025 authors attribute their traces to dipnoan fish moving in semi-terrestrial conditions, while the 2010 trackways were interpreted as tetrapod traces. Science News’ 2010 coverage and National Geographic’s historical account discuss the earlier debate over what could be inferred from tracks without a corresponding body fossil.
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