If you close your eyes and picture dinosaurs roaming across Earth, what do you see? Probably not the cold, misty shorelines of Scotland.
Thanks to 131 footprint findings by a team at the University of Edinburgh, we can now confirm thatTyrannosaurus rex’sancestors, and others, did indeed frequent the Scottish islands. These footprints, located at Prince Charles’s Point on the Isle of Skye, give insights into dino distribution during an important evolutionary period.
Dinosaur Footprints and Trackways
In an open-access article published inPLOS One, Tone Blakesley and his team discussed their exciting find that dates back about 167 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic. At this time, Scotland would’ve looked more like modern-day Spain or California, with subtropical temperatures and a lush environment.
The tracks were found in the sedimentary rippled sand remnants of an ancient subtropical lagoon. Footprints in these rocks range in size from 9 inches to 23 inches and come in two different varieties: three-toed tracks and round tracks.
The two types of tracks belong to dinosaurs familiar to fans ofJurassic Park. About the size of a tire each, the round tracks were likely left by quadrupedal, long-necked sauropods similar to the Brontosaurus. A large theropod ancestor of theT. rex, likeMegalosaurus, likely left the three-toed tracks.
Read More:Is the T. Rex Three Different Species?
Although dinosaur footprints can be found all over the rocks on the Isle of Skye, this new discovery is among the largest examples known on the Isle. There are also more theropod tracks at this location than others. This could indicate that there were environmental differences between the ancient Scottish lagoons and that some dinosaurs may have preferred one lagoon over another.
“The footprints at Prince Charles’s Point provide a fascinating insight into the behaviors and environmental distributions of meat-eating theropods and plant-eating, long-necked sauropods during an important time in their evolution,” the research team said in apress release. “On Skye, these dinosaurs clearly preferred shallowly submerged lagoonal environments over subaerially exposed mudflats.”
Some of the behaviors that this new find can uncover include what the dinosaurs were doing in this location millions of years ago. In this section of rock, the footprints of both varieties appear together and sequentially, with the longest set of tracks measuring at over 40 feet.
The spacing and orientation of the tracks suggest a slow walking gait and no consistent direction or purposeful interaction between the dinosaurs in this location. It is probable that the dinosaurs that frequented this once-thriving subtropical region spent their time casually wandering around the lagoon without crossing each others’ paths.
A Jurassic Discovery
One of the most unique aspects of this new find on the Isle of Skye is the accompanyingdocumentary released alongside the academic article. The documentary follows Blakesley and his team and tells the story of the footprints' discovery and how the team was able to map the tracks from above.
In April of 2023, a group of paleontology Master’s students joined forces with a team of drone technicians to collect drone footage of the footprints and trackways. The photoshoot took three and a half hours and produced incredible aerial photographs and videos that you can see in the film.
Blakesley then used these aerial images to create 3D models of the footprints. The digital reconstructions allowed the team to see the footprints in a new way and helped them create blueprints to map and track the pathways of the dinosaurs. The team hopes to continue using the digital reconstructions for current and future research on Scotland’s Jurassic history.
Read More:4 Megalosaurus Fossils Discovered Throughout Time
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As the marketing coordinator at Discover Magazine, Stephanie Edwards interacts with readers across Discover's social media channels and writes digital content. Offline, she is a contract lecturer in English & Cultural Studies at Lakehead University, teaching courses on everything from professional communication to Taylor Swift, and received her graduate degrees in the same department from McMaster University. You can find more of her science writing in Lab Manager and her short fiction in anthologies and literary magazine across the horror genre.