English: Chirotherium monument in Hildburghausen/Germany in honour of the first scientific description of a tetrapod trace fossil (Chirotherium barthii). The monument is composed of a wall showing the reconstruction of the original track-bearing slab on which the description of C. barthii was based (background), and a bronze sculpture figuring the assumed trackmaker (sculptor: Martin H. Kroniger; scientific work: H. Haubold, Universität Halle). The original fossils are housed in about 30 collections all over Europe. The sandstone in which these footprints are preserved is about 240 million years old (Lower Triassic). Chirotherium has probably been made by members of the early archosaurs, the ancestors of birds, crocodiles and dinosaurs.