Ichnological evidence on the behaviour of mitrates: two trails associated with the Devonian mitrate Rhenocystis

The mitrates are controversial marine Palaeozoic fossils, assigned either to the chordates or to the echinoderms. This paper describes two trails associated with the mitrate Rhenocystis from the Lower Devonian Hunsrück Slate, Bundenbach, Germany. They indicate that, just before death, the animals were moving tail-first with the flat dorsal surface of the head upward. This behaviour is consistent with the chordate theory of mitrates, rather than with either of the two current echinoderm interpretations.