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I prefer to define ichnology as a time machine that allows us to observe as directly as possible extinct insects nesting in fantastic landscapes with huge animals, either ground sloths or dinosaurs. Humans have been looking for alternative realities since the antiquity, creating the magic worlds of fairies, elves, dragons, phantoms, and aliens. Cartoons, science-fiction movies and computers gave us the tools to live all these alternative worlds. However, those worlds are imaginary. In contrast, extinct plants and animals compose a paleontological world or worlds along time, which are the only alternate realities that truly existed. Ichnology is the time machine that turns on the movie projector and gives movement to those worlds.

Genise, J.F. (2017). Introduction. In: Ichnoentomology. Topics in Geobiology, vol 37. Springer, Cham.