Do you know of ANY animal who can recognize a footprint ( without smell ) for what it is and know that it means some type of animal has gone that way? I don’t know of any… and that seems odd to me. I would think that would be a great evolutionary advantage and that they would at least learn to associate the smell ( when recent enough ) with the track itself and then learn to recognize the track alone.
I’ve searched but so far found nothing on the subject…
Why would you think that? Smell is more useful by several orders of magnitude.
[ul]
[li]It reflects the freshness of the spoor[/li][li]It is deposited in many different ways, even when no footprints are made[/li][li]It is more distinct than most footprints and at a minimum equal to a clear and distinct one[/li][/ul]