Dinosaur tracks unveil Isle of Skye's Jurassic mysteries
On the Scottish Isle of Skye, a team of researchers has discovered 131 dinosaur tracks from the Jurassic period, providing new insights into their behaviour and living environment.
The research, published on 2nd April in the scientific journal "PLOS ONE" by researcher Tone Blakesley from the University of Edinburgh and his colleagues, reveals that these well-preserved tracks are located in the island's folded rock formations.
Mysteries hidden in dinosaur tracks
The discovered tracks, measuring approximately 25 to 60 centimetres in length, belong to two types: three-toed tracks left by bipedal, carnivorous theropods and rounded, tyre-like tracks created by quadrupedal, long-necked sauropods. Based on comparisons with previous finds, scientists speculate that these tracks could have been left by large theropods similar to Megalosaurus and early members of the neosauropods group, resembling Cetiosaurus.
Neosauropods were large herbivorous reptiles that lived during the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods. They were characterised by long necks and tails, with massive bodies adapted to moving on four legs. These species, like Cetiosaurus, had a relatively short head compared to the rest of their body, and their spine was more flexible than that of earlier sauropods. Neosauropods could reach enormous sizes and dominated plant ecosystems, moving in search of food.
The uniqueness of the discovered tracks
Many of these tracks occur in sequential steps, and the longest of them exceeds 12 metres, making them some of the longest-known examples from the Isle of Skye. The spacing and orientation of these tracks suggest a slow gait without a constant direction, indicating that the dinosaurs moved freely at various times.
Tone Blakesley from the University of Edinburgh, along with the team, emphasises that the footprints at Prince Charles’s Point provide a fascinating insight into the behaviour and environmental distribution of carnivorous theropods and herbivorous, long-necked sauropods during a significant period of their evolution. On the Isle of Skye, these dinosaurs clearly preferred shallow, lagoon-like environments over exposed, subsurface mud.
This site confirms previous evidence that Jurassic sauropods often visited Scottish lagoons, which are coastal water bodies. However, this site has a higher proportion of theropod tracks than similar locations, which may indicate environmental differences between these ancient lagoons. The absence of tracks from other dinosaurs, such as stegosaurs or ornithopods, remains a mystery.
This discovery is part of a larger research project conducted by the PalAlba team, supported by the National Geographic Society and the Philip Leverhulme Prize awarded to Stephen L. Brusatte.
