Hamipes Hitchcock, 1858

Emended Diagnosis. A trackway consisting of two rows of elongate, crescentic or j-shaped imprints arranged into series with staggered to alternating symmetry. Tracks approximately par-allel to each other and to the trackway midline. The outer track is longer than the inner track. Inner and outer tracks are closely spaced and the negative space between the track rows accounts for 80 – 90% of the trackway width.

Remarks. As noted by Minter and Braddy (2009), Hamipes is similar to a number of other ichnotaxa that Hitchcock erected, including Acanthichnus, Bifurculapes, Camurichnus, Conopsoides, Copeza, Grammepus, Harpagopus, Harpepus, Lithographus, and Stratipes. Hamipes can be differentiated from these taxa, however, by a number of features. Among them is the number of tracks per series. Hamipeshas only two tracks per series, whereas Bifurculapes, Copeza, Grammepus, and Lithographus have up to three tracks per series. Additionally, most Acanthichnusand Conopsoides have only one track per series. Hamipes can be differentiated from Harpagopus, Harpepus, and Stratipes, the latter two of which also have two tracks per series, by the orientation of the tracks. In Harpagopus, Harpepus, and Stratipesthe tracks are oriented nearly perpendicular to the trackway midline, whereas in Hamipes they are oriented nearly parallel to the midline. Finally, Hamipes has much narrower track rows, relative to the size of the trackway, than similar taxa like Bifurculapes.