Footprints reveal prehistoric Scottish lagoons were stomping grounds for giant Jurassic dinosaurs

(Press-News.org) Jurassic dinosaurs milled about ancient Scottish lagoons, leaving up to 131 footprints at a newly discovered stomping ground on the Isle of Skye in Scotland, according to a study published April 2, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Tone Blakesley of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland and colleagues.

In the rocks of the Isle of Skye, dinosaur footprints are abundant, providing insights into dinosaur distribution and behavior during an important time in their evolution. The footprints were left in the rippled sands of an ancient subtropical lagoon, dating back to the Middle Jurassic – approximately 167 million years ago.

The footprints range from 25-60cm long and come in two varieties: three-toed tracks left by bipedal, carnivorous theropods and rounder ‘tyre-size’ tracks made by quadrupedal, long-necked sauropods. Based on comparisons with previous fossil finds, the most likely trackmakers are identified as large theropods similar to Megalosaurus and early-branching members of the neosauropod group similar to Cetiosaurus, both of which are known from skeletal remains in the UK.

Many of these footprints occur together in sequential steps. The longest of these trackways are over 12 meters, among the longest examples known from the Isle of Skye. The spacing and orientation of these trackways represent slow walking gaits with no consistent direction or interaction with each other, most likely left by dinosaurs casually milling about at slightly different times.

This site supports previous evidence that Jurassic sauropods frequented Scottish lagoons. However, this site contains a higher proportion of theropod tracks than similar localities, possibly indicating some environmental difference between these ancient lagoons. This site also lacks footprints from other dinosaurs such as stegosaurs or ornithopods but whether these animals were truly absent in this environment or simply didn’t leave footprints at this site remains unclear.

The authors add: “The footprints at Prince Charles's Point provide 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. On Skye, these dinosaurs clearly preferred shallowly submerged lagoonal environments over subaerially exposed mudflats. Intriguingly, the site also has some historical significance, as a place on Skye where Bonnie Prince Charlie landed and hid during his flight across Scotland following the Battle of Culloden.”

 

 

An accompanying feature-length documentary, produced by Tone Blakesley, summarizing the research is available to watch at: https://youtu.be/ERQIEH7Epes

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4bVUTdJ

Citation: Blakesley T, dePolo PE, Wade TJ, Ross DA, Brusatte SL (2025) A new Middle Jurassic lagoon margin assemblage of theropod and sauropod dinosaur trackways from the Isle of Skye, Scotland. PLoS ONE 20(4): e0319862. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319862

Author countries: U.K.

Funding: The PalAlba team’s work on Skye is supported by the National Geographic Society (GEFNE185-16) and a Philip Leverhulme Prize to Stephen L. Brusatte.

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