mortichnium

English

Noun

mortichnium (plural mortichnia)

1. (chiefly in the plural) The trail or trace left by a dying animal, especially as preserved in a fossil.
   • 2015, Adolf Seilacher, Alan D. Gishlick, Morphodynamics, page 268:

     In the Ediacaran mortichnia, however, the traces are always in front of the death mask, as seen in the perfect mortichnium from Russia.

   • 2017 May 17, Hanneke Meijer, The Guardian‎^[1]:

     One of the most extravagant examples of mortichnia was described from the same limestone in Solnhofen, Bavaria. This trace fossil captured the last minutes of a horseshoe crab’s life when it tumbled to the bottom of a lagoon.