ichnotaxon
Sign in to savethumb|The ichnogenus Thalassinoides: [[burrow fossil produced by crustaceans from the Middle Jurassic, HaMakhtesh HaKatan, southern Israel]] An ichnotaxon (plural ichnotaxa) is "a taxon based on the fossilized work of an organism", i.e. the non-human equivalent of an artifact. Ichnotaxon comes from the Ancient Greek (íchnos) meaning "track" and English , itself derived from Ancient Greek (táxis) meaning "ordering".
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thumb|The ichnogenus Thalassinoides: [[burrow fossil produced by crustaceans from the Middle Jurassic, HaMakhtesh HaKatan, southern Israel]] An ichnotaxon (plural ichnotaxa) is "a taxon based on the fossilized work of an organism", i.e. the non-human equivalent of an artifact. Ichnotaxon comes from the Ancient Greek (íchnos) meaning "track" and English , itself derived from Ancient Greek (táxis) meaning "ordering".
Ichnotaxa are names used to identify and distinguish morphologically distinctive ichnofossils, more commonly known as trace fossils (fossil records of lifeforms' movement, rather than of the lifeforms themselves). They are assigned genus and species ranks by ichnologists, much like organisms in Linnaean taxonomy. These are known as ichnogenera and ichnospecies, respectively. "Ichnogenus" and "ichnospecies" are commonly abbreviated as "igen." and "isp.". The binomial names of ichnospecies and their genera are to be written in italics.