New Dinosaur Tracks on Scotland’s Isle of Skye

"The footprints of stegosaurs, carnivorous theropods and huge herbivorous ornithopod dinosaurs that date back to 170 million years ago (Middle Jurassic epoch) have been discovered on the Isle of Skye, Scotland. Stand on the wind-swept crags lining Scotland's western coast today, and you'd be lucky to spot a puffin or two. But the closer we look, the more evidence we find it was once home to an incredibly diverse array of ancient beasts.

The discovery of new sets of fossilised tracks has expanded the list of potential dinosaur populations that roamed what is now the Isle of Skye. Among them are tracks left by an animal that would have belonged to one of the most famous plate-backed herbivore suborders, Stegosauria. Scottish and Brazilian researchers have spent the past couple of years analysing two recently found tracksites at a spot on the island's north-eastern coast called Rubha nam Brathairean, or Brothers' Point. "These new tracksites give us a much clearer picture of the dinosaurs that lived in Scotland 170 million years ago," says University of Edinburgh palaeontologist Stephen Brusatte." Read the full article.