ABSTRACT
Palaeoichnologists possess a rich vocabulary of terms with which to describe occurrence and distribution of trace fossils. These terms are mainly borrowed from body fossil palaeoecology, but as bodies and traces are not biologically equivalent concepts, problems emerge with the equivalent terminologies. In fact, these terms have been used in many different ways and there is some disagreement over their definitions. In particular, there is difficulty over scale, or hierarchical ranking, of the terms.
