The Grand Canyon National Park recently released a press release revealing the discovery of 280-million-year-old fossil tracks in a remote area of the Grand Canyon.

The fossil tracks predate the appearance of the earliest dinosaurs. The group who discovered the tracks was comprised of international paleontologists, and they described the tracks as “extremely well-preserved trackways of primitive tetrapods (four-footed animals) which inhabited an ancient desert environment.”

Paleontologists say the tracks were made by a “long-extinct relative of very early reptiles… of extinct tetrapods known as diadectomorphs, a primitive group that possessed characteristics of both amphibians and reptiles.”

They state that the creature walked on four legs, with each foot containing five “clawless digits.” The press release stated, “Although the actual track maker for the Grand Canyon footprints may never be known, the Grand Canyon trackways preserve the travel of a very early terrestrial vertebrate.”