Editing Trace fossil (section)

== Confusion with other types of fossils ==
[[Image:AsteriacitesDevonianOhio.jpg|thumb|''[[Asteriacites]]'' (sea star trace fossil) from the [[Devonian]] of northeastern Ohio. It appears at first to be an external mold of the body, but the sediment piled between the rays shows that it is a burrow.]]
Trace fossils are not body casts. The [[Ediacara biota]], for instance, primarily comprises the casts of organisms in sediment. Similarly, a footprint is not a simple replica of the sole of the foot, and the resting trace of a seastar has different details than an impression of a seastar.

Early paleobotanists misidentified a wide variety of structures they found on the bedding planes of [[sedimentary rocks]] as fucoids ([[Fucales]], a kind of [[brown algae]] or [[seaweed]]). However, even during the earliest decades of the study of ichnology, some fossils were recognized as animal footprints and burrows. Studies in the 1880s by [[A. G. Nathorst]] and [[Joseph F. James]] comparing 'fucoids' to modern traces made it increasingly clear that most of the specimens identified as fossil fucoids were animal trails and burrows. True fossil fucoids are quite rare.

[[Pseudofossil]]s, which are ''not'' true fossils, should also not be confused with ichnofossils, which are true indications of prehistoric life.