| ..... |
| Small Cat Conservation Alliance |
| Fossil cat tracks Salinas de Anana, Spain |
| Many thanks to Jose-Carnelo Corral at the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Alava. |
| Plaster cast of the original track. The track is about 5cm long. |
| Mauricio Anton reproduced the track and used artistic license to draw the cat. Note the dew claw much closer to the pad than in modern cats. |
Why is the Salinas de Anana site important to cat conservation?
Unlike dinosaur tracks, mammal tracks are extremely rare. The tracks left by a very
diverse community of mammals and birds at Salinas de Anana are dated to the Miocene
20 million years ago. Among the tracks are those of an adult cat, probably a female,
accompanied by at least 2 juvenile cats, likely her offspring. These are the oldest
known fossil cats tracks and are a bit different from modern cats as can be see from
this picture taken from the book Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives by Alan Turner and
Mauricio Anton, and also a drawing of the actual track.
Salinas de Anana is located west of the city of Vitoria in northern Spain. It is an ancient
site where Romans mined salt (and so is on the tourist maps). The remains of this can
still be seen and salt extraction continues today. In the early 1990s a German geology
graduate student was walking along the dirt road just past the end of the paved road
when he saw mammal tracks in the underlying bedrock about 70cm below the ground
surface. Little did he know that he had discovered perhaps the richest site for Miocene
mammal tracks in the world.
A small section of the site was excavated and studied for 15 days. Rubber casts were
made of the track site and two scientific papers were published. The tracks were then
covered with rubber used in road making and then with soil. The site is on private land
and the owner promised not to disturb it which is the way I found it on June 27, 2004.
As remarkable as the tracks are, the site is unprotected and in the hands of a local
farmer. Of the two rubber casts that were made one is in the museum in Bilbao, Spain
on the north coast and one is lost in the town of Salinas de Anana.
Unlike dinosaur tracks, mammal tracks are extremely rare. The tracks left by a very
diverse community of mammals and birds at Salinas de Anana are dated to the Miocene
20 million years ago. Among the tracks are those of an adult cat, probably a female,
accompanied by at least 2 juvenile cats, likely her offspring. These are the oldest
known fossil cats tracks and are a bit different from modern cats as can be see from
this picture taken from the book Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives by Alan Turner and
Mauricio Anton, and also a drawing of the actual track.
Salinas de Anana is located west of the city of Vitoria in northern Spain. It is an ancient
site where Romans mined salt (and so is on the tourist maps). The remains of this can
still be seen and salt extraction continues today. In the early 1990s a German geology
graduate student was walking along the dirt road just past the end of the paved road
when he saw mammal tracks in the underlying bedrock about 70cm below the ground
surface. Little did he know that he had discovered perhaps the richest site for Miocene
mammal tracks in the world.
A small section of the site was excavated and studied for 15 days. Rubber casts were
made of the track site and two scientific papers were published. The tracks were then
covered with rubber used in road making and then with soil. The site is on private land
and the owner promised not to disturb it which is the way I found it on June 27, 2004.
As remarkable as the tracks are, the site is unprotected and in the hands of a local
farmer. Of the two rubber casts that were made one is in the museum in Bilbao, Spain
on the north coast and one is lost in the town of Salinas de Anana.