Cows?

Hard to tell in dirt

It's a cloven hoofed animal - cow, sheep, goat, elk, moose or deer - stepping almost into the front print with the back one.

The picture that Karsyn took is deer tracks if she lives by the woods, which judging by the photo is correct. For the others, it looks like deer, or wild pig hoof prints but can't tell the marks got disturbed by the rear legs, so unless you find clearer Hoofprints, that'll be great.

The only animals I can think of with three toes about that size would be one of the Ratites like an Emu or a Rhea. Not long ago, many owners of these birds released them into the wild. Most didn't survive but I suppose some could have.

I have
one of those tracks today. It was not there about 10:00AM when this fire ant pile was poisoned, but it was there about 4:45PM when my husband
walked in from hunting. It definitely has a pad below the 3 toes. I have no idea what it could be.

I would like to know what made these prints. I found a few today in South Texas in Poteet deep into our ranch and I don't think it's hog prints because I've seen their prints before. It looks like whatever made the impression is heavy which is causing the movement into the prints as if the ground was wet and the it caused a squish like print.

We had another track in the veg
garden today but rain distorted it too much for a clear picture. This track is
about 60 yards from the 1st one we found in a fire ant mound. We
have no idea what it can be and with all the game cameras in the area nothing
weird has shown up. We are in East
Texas, Chireno area, very rural
area.

We keep trying to explain that what you are seeing is a cloven-footed animal (deer? hog? cow?) walking, with the rear feet stepping onto the tracks left by the front feet. It is the normal walking pattern of many animals.

http://cwf-fcf.org/en/news-features/articles/animal-tracks.html 

"Diagonal pattern

This next group of animals include the deer, cat and dog families,
for example, deer, moose, caribou, elk, fox, wolf, coyote, bobcat,
mountain lion and dog. For the animals that
use this pattern, the rear right foot lands on top of, but slightly
behind, where the front right foot was a moment earlier. " (and same with the left)

To declare something a 3-toed creature, you would have to see more than one footprint - you have to see a trail with multiple identical footprints showing three toes in every instance of the print.

lazy_gardens,
a cloven-footed animal (deer? hog? cow?) walking, with
the rear feet stepping onto the tracks does happen sometimes but none of
them have a pad on their feet. Now the cats, fox, wolf, coyote, bobcat,
mountain lion and dog do have pads but none of them have a toe or claw the size
of my thumb. And to see more than one
footprint I would have to have found the track somewhere other that a pasture
or overgrown vegetable garden. I
understand your frustration because you have not personally seen the track but
it doesn’t make our query unimportant. I’ve
lived and hunted in the Piney Woods for the past 35 years, (I left the town
life when I was 30), and have seen and heard some strange things, so I don’t
discount other people’s observations lightly.
Perhaps you should try being as gracious.

OK, let's rule out the rare and strange: What species of animal that can survive in your area has a foot that would leave a track like that? Not a chupacabra, Jersey devil, swamp thing or escaped velociraptor, but a known species of 3-toed critters.

The closest 3-toed critters are the tapirs of Central America, and that's not what their footprints are like. Ostrich or emu have three toes, and they have been known to escape and survive, but their tracks don't look like that.

"to see more than one
footprint I would have to have found the track somewhere other that a pasture
or overgrown vegetable garden"

Which is why if you are identifying species present in an area, you go to places where they will leave decent tracks. The sandy bottom of washes, road edges and dirt roads, stream banks are excellent. To get to your garden, that creature either dropped out of the sky or walked in ... if you see FLPs (funny-looking prints) again, check the perimeter of the area to find better examples.

And I lived and hunted in the "piney woods" too, with deer, elk, bear, pumas, bobcats, coyotes, wolves, wolverines, and bunnies.

When that cow lands her hind feet, she'll leave a really weird track.

You must have hunted in a different Piney Woods than I have,
I meant East Texas. Some of the animals you say you have
hunted in the piney woods most commonly are found in open country such as
prairies and plains like the badger (or wolverine) avoid heavily wooded areas
and habitats with rocky soils. Unless you are hunting in a managed club, East Texans
go to Colorado to hunt elk. That is because by the late 1800’s, records
indicate that elk were only present in the Guadalupe
Mountains of far west Texas.
Currently, free ranging elk exist over a large portion of west Texas
and on high fence ranches throughout the state.
The LA black bear have only recently been sighted in East
Texas and they are on the state endangered species list, so they
cannot be hunted. We do have bobcats, coyotes, wolves, deer, and “bunnies”. And I have seen one puma 4 years ago in my
front yard, (I claim about 5 acres as my “yard”). That was the year my 35 outdoor cat
population went down to 2 as did my neighbor’s cats. We couldn’t figure it out because of the lack
of tracks until I saw the lion. A few weeks later I did find a single track at
a creek’s edge. The only sightings since in the area have been one hit by a
vehicle and a rancher shot one. SFA is
very interested in puma sightings and keeps a detailed log of them; SFA is in
the closest town to me. Perhaps you should talk about what you have first-hand
knowledge of rather than just your Internet searches.

My "piney woods" were in the northern Rockies.

The person that posted this picture referred to it as a three toed coyote track. I agree that some tracks may be hog or deer tracks that have been altered by the hind foot but it's fairly obvious that this is not from a cloven hoof animal.

Phillip ... From the presence of the rear pad, shape of the pad, and the claws ... that is some sort of dog family creature that was unlucky with a trap or a fight. Species depending on where I saw it and its size. I would have to see a trail of similar tracks, 3-toed on all feet, before I started thinking of chupacabras.

..

Looking at the originally posted picture ... There are definitely dew claw holes in it (I overlooked them earlier) which I have marked with red dots. In snow, soft earth and mud, or when running, the dew claws often make marks. So boar or deer is most probable, given the area. They don't splay out like pig dew claws (and the garden would have been trashed), so my bet is on deer.

http://www.bear-tracker.com/deer.html 

http://www.bear-tracker.com/deertracksandfeet.html 

Lazy.. just kiddin'. ;-) Although I find Sasquatch, the Chupacabra and visitors from outer space fun to speculate, I have no confidence that any of them exist. Well... maybe aliens but we're gunna build a wall for them. ;-) However, I do know that some strange things do occur and I try to keep an open mind about them. e.g. I knew a fella that had what I jokingly referred to as Mickey Mouse hands. When I met him and shook his hand for the first time I noticed that he had only a thumb and three digits. His hand was about the same size as mine but his fingers were slightly larger giving the hand a natural configuration as opposed to just missing the little finger. I have been interested in evolutionary mutations most of my adult life so I wasn't surprised when he showed me his other hand and although it was just opposite.. it was exactly the same as his right hand. I was then convinced that it was a genetic or evolutionary mutation and not just a deformity. In our part of Texas.. we have had many reports of "Chupacabra" sightings. There are photos, videos and even a couple of dead ones have been found. They are canids of some sort but all are almost hairless and strangely shaped. DNA tests show them to be a cross between a Mexican wolf and a Coyote. I was just curious about the possibility of the three toe tracks being a genetic mutation. I agree that there should be a succession of three toed prints to confirm a hereditary mutation. The person that posted the picture didn't mention other prints although there should have been and it would have been helpful. Without that, I'm confident that you are correct.. it is probably not a mutation but probably an injury or double impression.

hey i live up in Massachusetts and i found tracks like the ones in the first pic, it was about 2200 and i saw this thing going across my yard so i ran up stairs and opened the window and was looking with a flash light. I couldnt see anything but i could hear it walking through the woods. i know it wasint a moose, bear, dear by the way it was walking... any ideas??

I live in southwestern PA and took a photo of the same thing this morning. It was large. I thought it was because the snow could've melted a little causing the track to look bigger but there were cat prints going up the same path in my driveway that were normal size. I'm unableto upload my photo but i stood next to thetrack for size comparison and it was half the length of my foot. I'm a little creeped out to find out it wasn't a deer...lol

Chupacabra?

I just seen the same thing amongst other deer tracks.

Saw this in NE Texas yesterday. There were multiple of them which rules out double stepping animals. Compared to my 10.5 boot. What ever it is, it’s big

I hope someone can get a pic of the animal soon so we will at least know what we're looking at.

Help identify

I found these tracks near Lake Lavon in Texas. There were multiple tracks of the span of it least 200 yards where the dirt was exposed. I dont think its a hog, maybe a deformed one? But these tracks almost all look the same on this chat.

It was a short trail on a lakeside beach in OK Falls BC Canada, so above the Rocky's.

It was a bit more then palm sized and there was aspicously a hooded woodpecker burried in the sand along its trail.

I assumed its a coyote but it also struck me a destinctly different and while we we have lots of deer this is a beach surrounded by houses I'm a tourist town.

Not to mention each print was just like this.

I found your debate because of this so I thought I'd throw my two cents in.

I followed that track across the desert for over a half a mile with a stride of 6 to 7 feet between I should have taken a video of the trail but I didn’t

Ok, all of the people trying to say that this is a double track, least of all some kind of deer double track, have clearly not seen it. I have seen several of them around a muddy creek in Marshall TX. Out in the Nesbitt area. Both left and right prints, and they were everywhere. There's no way that they could all have been any kind of double prints. There's also something stalking the wood around Nesbitt that doesn't sound like anything I have ever heard. I have lived here since I was a kid and sit outside at night all the time. My mom used to take us owl calling in the middle of the night when I was younger and I gained a great fondness for the sounds of nighttime animals. I have never heard anything like it before. Whatever it is, there are several of them that call back and forth to each other and only very late at night.

The closest thing I have seen is a cassowary track.

https://wanderstories.space/content/images/2020/02/raspberry-falls-track-cassowary-footprint.jpg

(I'm not saying cassowaries are roaming Texas making the originally posted print.)

https://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/8922488404c4b1cb_9-6717/home-design.jpg

This is fascinating. I live on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. It is farm land and I live in a small retirement community. No one could identify the tracks in my back yard. I thought deer too. Love hearing about others trying to unravel the mystery.

Have photos of same tracks in East Central Arizona, 1 and 1/2 miles from Fort Apache

My daughter has been seeing a lot of these on Whidbey Island, WA.

Seems too clean to be a double print, but still waiting to hear whether they have seen a string of identical ones together.

FWIW, they also saw some albino deer in the same area, but I can’t find anything about hoof mutations in albino deer. (I know white cats with blue eyes often have extra toes, which is surely unrelated but made it occur to me.)

I saw these tracks in NE Texas in Cass County TX in a timber property looking for our dog. The rain was 2 days prior and a clear print the size of my hand like in earlier pictures here. The track was strolling down the road through the property. The stride isn't wide, say compared to a human or deer. The impression was from a larger animal with a defined claw. We've seen a lot of animals out here but nothing like this. I read one article that they saw it looking back at them but couldn't define what it was they were looking at. Keep posting maybe we will get a thermal imaging of this critter/animal/unknown species.

To me, your tracks appear to be deer that have walked over another track.

I should have taken pics yesterday while gardening. It rained last night and distorted the tracks. Not a deer. I recognize deer tracks. I'm in Northwestern Alabama.

This could be the answer some are looking for.

Searched my yards and found this print near an ant bed. (Between my fingers).

The print is to weathered to really be worth photos so I took this of the ant bedbed alsoalsoalsalso

I found one in Northern Virginia today not sure but same track never seen it before hunted all my life

Northern Nevada 12/3/2024 size ten wide redwing and I'm 200 pounds this things stride is about six foot apart and the noise it makes is an extremely loud primate scream but it smells like a straight swamp scares two 120 Rottweilers bad enough they won't come out of the trailer and is caple of throwing 40pound objects like they are pebbles the is the second set i have seen in five years and it makes. Your hair stand on end knowing you in the presence of this thing.

I found the exact same track,i mean exactly the same. I have tracked pretty much every animal in North America and im baffled by the track. I found the track on reservation land. It's a huge Forest,state park in Sissiton SD. I agree it's something huge