News Paleontology

Scotland’s Isle of Skye was once a dinosaur promenade

Fossil footprints reveal both carnivores and herbivores strolled by an ancient lagoon

An image of a sauropod dinosaur and a theropod dinosaur walking in sand on the Isle of Skye.

A theropod dinosaur and a sauropod dinosaur strolling through soft sediments on what’s now the Isle of Skye in this artist’s reconstruction.

Tone Blakesley and Scott Reid, CC-BY 4.0

By Carolyn Gramling

Scotland’s remote Isle of Skye was once a bustling dinosaur thoroughfare. A newly discovered set of at least 131 fossilized footprints dating to between 170 million and 166 million years ago reveals that both long-necked sauropods and carnivorous theropods splashed through the shallow waters of what was then a balmy, subtropical lagoon, imprinting their tracks onto the soft sands.