What it is
One of a large group of early amphibians, many of them shaped like salamanders, with broad heads and short legs. Eryops was one of the big ones. The ones in the Robledo Mountains of New Mexico were small.
Baby hands
The commonest footprints in the Robledo Mountains are tiny, less than an inch long. Scientists say they look like a human baby's prints, with four fingers on the hand and five toes on the foot. The tracks are called Batrachichnus, and many show the drag mark of a tail. Their makers were small, salamander-like temnospondyls.
Only footprints
No bones of these animals have turned up in the Robledo rocks. Scientists match the prints to feet found in other rocks. So many tracks there mean there was fresh water very close to the old seacoast.