The World’s First Fossilized Buttock-Drag Mark was Made by a Dassie
- Oct 22
- 7 min read
New Study Identifies First Ever Dassie Trace Fossils Including the First Ever Buttock-Drag Mark Fossil
When I was nine years old, my family and I decided to go on a short vacation in a safari game park. I decided to go climbing on the large boulders that made up the foot of the cliff next to which we stayed. As I did so, I came upon a cave, or at least two or three large boulders that had created a sort of rock tent. Thrilled, I decided to explore, only for a creature no bigger than a house cat to come charging at me, shrieking like a banshee. It ran after me and tried to attack. This creature was a mother dassie and her young.
Dassies or hyraxes, to us, are small, furry, and stout mammals that can be found across Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. To date, no known paleoichnological trace fossils of hyraxes have been recorded, that is, fossils such as footprints, dust-bath hollows, or any other activity that may leave a trace.
However, a recent study by Dr. Charles Helm and his colleagues has possibly identified not one but two of the first fossilized dassie traces. In addition, one of these trace fossil types is the very first of its kind, and well, if you know dassies, you will know it’s rather fitting for such a weird and funny creature to leave behind an equally weird and funny trace fossil.
The Dassie
Hyraxes, aka dassies, are small, herbivorous mammals with a stout build and no visible tails. Their name ‘Dassie’, in Afrikaans, comes from the Dutch word ‘Dasje’, meaning little badger. However, they are not even vaguely related to badgers; instead, their closest living relatives are elephants, manatees, and dugongs.
Currently, there are five separate species of dassies that are confined to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. They are typically found sunning themselves on the rocks and are rather skittish when approached.
Although, it seems my mother dassie was one of the brave few.
The dassie has even been mentioned in the bible, though early translations into English sometimes referred to it as a rock-rabbit or a coney, more modern translations sometimes call it a rock-badger.
While it is no rabbit, it may have evolved to fill the ecological niche of one. You see the superorder, Afrotheria, to which it belongs, evolved during the Late Cretaceous to early Miocene when Africa was a large island. During this time, an intriguing array of animals filled the ecological niches typically filled by rodents and lagomorphs (e.g., rabbits).
The little creatures are incredibly skilled climbers, helped in part by their rubbery feet, which are kept moist by secretions from glands. Additionally, a hollow in the middle of the sole forms a muscle arrangement that acts a bit like suction cups, allowing the agile animals to climb upon even the most rugged and steep surfaces.
Another key characteristic of dassies is that they are able to concentrate urea and electrolytes and excrete large amounts of calcium carbonate. Because they use the same communal bathroom spots over many generations, their urine and droppings create distinctive deposits called rock hyrax middens.
These middens can develop over hundreds and even thousands of years as generations of dassies use the same communal bathroom. These middens can provide information on paleoenvironments, much like speleothems or sediment cores; they record changes in the environment through time.
Now, despite these little creatures being incredibly abundant, to the point where in some regions they are considered a pest, until now, there had been no known fossilized tracks of dassies.
However, two such tracks were found in 2024. I will tell you about both, but it is the second one that is the most intriguing and unique. In fact, it is so unique that no other fossil like it has been found for any other species.
Finding the Fossils
Along the Cape south coast of South Africa are exposed Waenhuiskrans Formation deposits. These deposits date back to the Pleistocene and were formed from ancient sand dunes that have since cemented into solid rock called aeolianites. These formations are rich with fossils and traces, left behind by animals that walked, scurried, crawled, and slithered over the once loose surface thousands of years ago.
The first of the dassie fossils was identified by Reserve Manager Mike Fabricus in 2024 in an area known as Die Plaat within the Walker Bay Nature Reserve close to Hermanus. The fossil consisted of 4 tracks with each depression around 5–7 cm long and 2,5 to 3 cm wide.
To most people, including myself, these prints would have gone unnoticed, but to the trained eye, they look suspiciously like footprints. One of the prints might even have had the slight impressions of toes, though thousands of years of erosion have made it difficult to be certain.
Based on the measurements, it is likely this track was the result of the bounding gait of a dassie. If I had to describe a bounding gait, I would say it is like a mix between a run and a jump. This type of locomotion is common in dassies and is how you will typically see them run away from you.
Based on Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating performed on rocks located around 200 m north-west of the trackways, the dassie who made these likely lived around 76±5 thousand years ago.
Now, while I find these fossils cute and they represent the very first known fossilized dassie trackways, they are, relatively speaking, the less spectacular of the two finds. So, how about we get to the second fossil?
A Fossil Unlike Any Other
The second fossil track was discovered east of Still Bay in the Bosbokfontein Private Nature Reserve. Here, an aeolianite block had become dislodged from coastal cliffs and came to a rest at an angle on the beach near the high tide mark. Based on OSL dating of the closest dated site, ca. 4,5 km east, the track mark is likely around 126 ± 9 thousand years old.
On the fossil’s surface were five parallel lines creating a groove that was around 95 cm long and ca. 13 cm wide. Though part of the block had broken off, and it’s likely these striations were once longer.
The parallel lines created a raised outer margin interpreted as placement rims. Aka, evidence that something was dragged through the loose sand thousands of years ago.
Now the question became what had been dragged through the sand?
A number of theories were proposed. The first to be considered was wave or wind action that had dragged twigs or something of that nature across the sands. However, the surface of the fossilized print was incompatible with wave action, and the isolated nature of the track did not match the known prints left behind by string wind action.
Since it seemed not to have been an environmental phenomenon, animals were considered next. The gemsbok sometimes takes up a defensive posture whereby it places its horns parallel to the ground or, in this case, sand, which may have scraped over the surface to leave behind the drag marks.
However, the striations observed on the fossil trackway did not match this behavior. Additionally, the one long raised internal structure would not have existed if a gemsbok had scraped its horns across the sandy surface.
Perhaps then, a predator, a leopard or even a human, dragged their prey or some object across the sand. While this action could have left similar marks (but still would not account for the raised feature in the middle), unless these leopards or humans knew how to float, they should also have left behind footprints.
The final hypothesis was that an elephant had dragged its trunk across the sand. However, again, certain aspects of the track simply did not fit, and even if they had an animal as large as an elephant, it should have been left behind other well-preserved tracks. Unless, somehow, the elephant’s feet had been positioned below the current bottom edge of the rock, where it would not have left any tracks. But this was unnecessarily speculative and still did not explain the raised feature in the drag mark.
So, are you ready for the answer? The next closest possibility is that this fossil track mark most resembled a buttock-drag mark of a dassie.
If you own a dog, or perhaps even if you don’t, you may know dogs have a habit of sometimes dragging their behinds across the ground. This is typically done if they have parasites or something of the sort (so take your dog to the vet if they do this, please).
For dassies, however, while they exhibit the same behaviour, the cause is less clear.
The overall shape, the rims, the striations, and the raised groove all fit perfectly with a dassie that dragged its butt along the sands thousands of years ago.
Additionally, a small oval structure found within the fossil trackway may also be explained. You see, the researchers tentatively suggest that this little pellet was a fumet. What is a fumet? Well, it’s a hyrax dung pellet.
I told you the fossil was a weird one, just as weird as the creature that made it.
Not only this, but the buttock-drag fossil is the very first of its kind, with no other known buttock-drag fossil having been discovered anywhere in the world.
Despite being a small, common part of the environment, these little creatures, especially in the geological record, are often overlooked.
And yet, there are likely many more hyrax fossils out there just waiting to be discovered. Who knows? While they may no longer be the first hyrax fossils, perhaps they will be the first dust-bath or digging fossil.
A recent study by Dr. Helm and his colleagues reported the discovery of the very first known dassie fossils as well as the very first buttock-drag fossil ever discovered. The fossil trackways were made 76 ± 5 and 126 ± 9 thousand years ago, respectively, by dassies actively running or dragging themselves across the once loose sands of the southern Cape coasts.
These dassie traces form an important, albeit unusual and unique part of the trace fossil record. It is likely that many other such fossils exist and have simply been overlooked across the African continent. Who knows what will be discovered next?
So, what do you think of this unusual trace fossil?
References
Helm, C. W., Cawthra, H. C., De Vynck, J. C., Quick, L. J., Stear, W., & Stuart, M. (2025). The unusual, unique ichnology of the rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) and possible Pleistocene tracks and traces from South Africa. Ichnos, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10420940.2025.2546373
Riaan. (2023, July 28). The Dassie — Table Mountain’s Most Common Mammal — Hike Table Mountain. Hike Table Mountain. https://hiketablemountain.co.za/what-is-table-mountains-most-common-mammal/
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