We have unidentified eggs and galls and tracks filed under Arthropoda and unidentified leaf mines and wood boring under Insecta. Should we think about how we want all these to look in BugGuide 2.0?
Maybe, in your honor, these should be subfolders under one called "Unidentified Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates"? :)
Our Unsolved mysteries could also be one of the subfolders.

I have it organized that way because leaf mines and wood borings (well, except for marine ones) are insect-specific, whereas the others are not.

:) I do have links to all the others on the unsolved mysteries page... I suppose they could all be nested within it instead.

From what I've seen, grasshoppers make short, straight footprints with their middle tarsi, which are well spaced from the central drag line. These look to me like the long, curved tracks made by the hind legs of a hymenopteran or beetle. You certainly pay more attention to orthopterans than I do, though, so I'd be interested to hear if you have experience to the contrary.

These are quite unlike any centipede tracks I've seen, and I don't think a centipede could leave a sharp, pronounced central drag line like that. When I've seen a central line in a centipede trail, it has been a broad, flat line made by the belly.

True crabs leave asymmetrical trails, since they walk sideways. A hermit crab, if it was walking straight forwards or backwards and was wearing a pointy shell, would still not leave long, graceful, curved footprints like this, from what I've seen.

See examples of all of the above in (1).

often leave tracks that look pretty much exactly like this. However, sometimes the same species leave totally different "footprints" and sometimes they leave no drag line. They don't always walk in the same way, and it results in different tracks. They walk differently when foraging than when courting or stalking a mate, and differently when it's cool or damp than when it's hot and dry, males less often drag than females and tend to move faster and more erratically, and so on. The others I mentioned vary behavior somewhat too, and while they have a "usual" way of walking, most can behave differently and leave other styles of tracks too. I've personally never seen a Centepede leave a track that looks like this, but have seen photos labeled as such - could be they were mis-labeled though. I have seen Crabs on the beach make tracks very similar to this. Sometimes they go forwards or backwards as well as sideways (I've watched them walk forwards for many yards when they tought they were alone), but usually the footprints are different. Couldn't tell you which species though - I've never learned them well - small fast ones. Right now I'd (very tentatively) vote for grasshopper, but I can't rule out a Hymanopteran at all. Somebody with lots of patience could probably sit there and find out for sure. Might be fun!

Wouldn't it be funny if it was some kid's toy that did it! Or, maybe it was a fish with a sense of humor? :0)

no other arthropods have a pointed tail end? No flies, no true bugs...?

anything else with this combination of long, curved footprints and a pointed abdomen drag. I can't think of a fly or true bug whose abdomen would point down to leave a mark like this. If you come up with an example that seems to be a viable alternative, let me know!

Arthropods? If he sees these from time to time, getting images with an actual bug at the end might be nice.

I thought Charley's comment implied that it was at least a likelihood that these tracks were arthropod-related. (Did I misunderstand?) Perhaps these images could go here in the meantime and John can continue to look for opportunities to photograph the presumed bee that made the tracks?

I'm confident that these are insect tracks, and I think a hymenopteran is highly probable. I agree that photos of a trail with an insect at the end would be of more value, but these are among the first insect tracks on BugGuide and I think they're worth keeping for the time being.

here if you develop a special page for tracks.

...compiled in one place! An article maybe?

I was thinking of just moving these images to Hymenoptera for now. Any objections or better suggestions?

I meant to say, that I think this is an excellent idea.

Very nice image. I am a paleontologist, looking at fossil tracks, and just discovered this site. I am writing a book about trace fossils, & might like to include this image as an example of an insect trackway. If the photographer is willing, & the original image of sufficiently high resolution, how would I go about getting a copy?

you will be taken to his contributor page which contains his email contact info.

...but I think David was actually expressing interest in using your image of the darkling beetle, not John Callender's presumed image of the hymenopteran tracks.

that one. I think that's an old 35mm slide so I don't know how good it is. I'll track it down and check, john

When I've seen trails like this being made by honey bees in the past, what I saw was that the bee's water-soaked body was sort of being pulled through the sand, leaving that central furrow behind.

I'll keep my eyes peeled, and try to find such a trail again with a bee at one end of it, so I can get a shot for comparison purposes. I've come across such trails several times in the past, though I've never photographed one before. I live in an agricultural valley with a nice beach to walk on, and bees apparently end up in the surf a lot around here.

You're definitely right about the direction of travel, and that is the tip of the insect's abdomen making the continuous central drag mark. Towards the upper right of the frame, the profile of the drag mark suggests the pointy-tipped abdomen of a hymenopteran. I found superficially very similar looking tracks made by a moth on the shore of Lake Ontario, but the blunter abdomen left a broader drag mark.

More shots of bees-in-wet-sand trails, this time with bees at the end of them: