Koreasaltipes: No measured body size data available to draw at scale.
- · Grid units represent actual meters (m); human and animals are drawn to the exact same scale with original silhouette aspect ratios preserved.
- · When a size range is recorded (e.g. 1–1.6m), the lower bound is used for scale comparison.
- · Human silhouette: PhyloPic — NASA · Public Domain Mark 1.0
Koreasaltipes
Koreasaltipes jinjuensis (Koreasaltipes · Koreasaltipes)
Known only from fossils. The IUCN Red List assesses only species extant since 1500 CE, so fossil taxa are not assigned a category.
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 A hopping trackway can be understood by comparing it to how we read the footprints of modern hopping animals such as rabbits or kangaroos (Comparison).
- 💡 Footprint fossils tell us where and how an animal moved even without body fossils, much like identifying animals from their tracks in snow or on mudflats (Comparison).
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
Koreasaltipes jinjuensis (ichnogenus Koreasaltipes) is the name given to fossil footprints of a tiny mammal (mammaliaform) found in the Jinju Formation of Gyeongsangnam-do. Because it is a footprint taxon, its body size and diet are unknown.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Interpreted as tracks left by hopping locomotion (a hopping trackway), they are counted as the smallest fossil mammal footprints known to date.
🔍 3. Fossil Record & Paleoecology
A 2017 paper in Cretaceous Research published them as "the first hopping mammaliaform trackway reported from the Cretaceous of Asia." The Jinju Formation is a well-preserved track site yielding abundant footprints of birds, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodylians, and mammals.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
Found in the Jinju Formation (Sindong Group) in Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, the paper notes that small footprint fossils are abundant at four large-scale excavation sites within Jinju.
📚 Sources & References
- • Fossil taxon — the IUCN Red List assesses only species living or extinct since 1500
- • paleobiodb.org — basicTaxonInfo
- • doi.org — j.cretres.2017.02.005
- • pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov — PMC6237872
- • pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov — PMC6746761
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.