Footprints of the world's biggest dinosaurs were found recently on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where the early sauropods apparently were hanging around with a cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex.
Dozens of fossils believed to be 170 million years old and found in a muddy lagoon on Skye, have been connected to sauropods, The Telegraph reported, adding they weighed more than 10 tons and were at least 49 feet long.
University of Edinburgh researchers also found footprints from the T-rex's older cousin, the theropods in a similar location, The Telegraph said. The dinosaur fossils also are believed to be the oldest ever found in Scotland.
"The more we look on the Isle of Skye, the more dinosaur footprints we find," said Steve Brusatte with the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences. "This new site records two different types of dinosaurs — long-necked cousins of Brontosaurus and sharp-toothed cousins of T. rex — hanging around a shallow lagoon, back when Scotland was much warmer and dinosaurs were beginning their march to global dominance."
During the study, which was detailed in the Scottish Journal of Geology Tuesday, researchers measured, photographed, and analyzed about 50 footprints in a tidal area at Brothers' Point – Rubha nam Brathairean – a headland on Skye's Trotternish peninsula, according to the university.
"Middle Jurassic dinosaur fossils are exceedingly rare, but new discoveries from the Isle of Skye, Scotland, are beginning to fill this gap," the Scottish Journal of Geology abstract stated. "… The site preserves an abundance of small sauropod manus and pes prints and several isolated and broken medium-to-large tridactyl footprints.
"The main site occurs on a single horizon of shaley limestone that formed in a lagoonal environment. … This new site strengthens the inference, originally based on a previously discovered locality near Duntulm Castle (Duntulm Formation) in northern Skye, that sauropods habitually spent time in lagoons during the Middle Jurassic," the abstract said.
University of Edinburgh researchers said the footprints were hard to study owing to tidal conditions, the impact of weathering and changes to the landscape.
"This tracksite is the second discovery of sauropod footprints on Skye," said Paige de Polo, of the university's School of GeoSciences. "It was found in rocks that were slightly older than those previously found at Duntulm on the island and demonstrates the presence of sauropods in this part of the world through a longer timescale than previously known.”
"This site is a useful building block for us to continue fleshing out a picture of what dinosaurs were like on Skye in the Middle Jurassic."
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