It is the place of a dramatic moment in the history of Scotland. The rocky coast of the island of Skye It is where Charles Edward Stuart – known as Bonnie Prince Charlie – arrived by boat, disguised as a maid, to hide from the English in 1746 after his defeat at the Battle of Culoden.
But this famous applicant to the British throne was not the only one to leave traces in what is called Prince Charles Point today. About 167 million years earlier, during the Jurassic period, large dinosaurs left footprints in the same place.
Now researchers have identified 131 fossilized footprints produced by carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaurs that moved in a subtropical lagoon of freshwater.
This extraordinary plot of footprints is important not only because dating from a time not represented in the fossil record, but also because it shows a routine life scene among the inhabitants of this ancient ecosystem, similar to animals of various species that are gathering today in drinking fountains in the African savannah.
“It’s a very quiet portrait of dinosaurs gathering, perhaps to drink or move between vegetation areas,” said Tone Blakesley, a postgraduate student in Paleontology at the University of Edinburgh and the lead author of the study published on Wednesday in PLOS One magazine.
“The dinosaurs who fed on plants were not, at that moment, under any immediate threat of predators.”
“The trails give us a vision of how these dinosaurs behaved and interacted with their environment – something that bones in themselves cannot provide,” Blakesley added.
Researchers cannot be sure of the exact species that left the footprints, but their sizes and shapes offer good clues.
All carnivorous dinosaurs were part of a group called Teropods. Those who left the footprints on the island of Skye They were part of a family called Megalossaurs. One possibility is the megaloseaur, which lived about 100 million years before its distant stringer, by 6 meters long, walked over two legs and had a mouth full of large seriled teeth. He was one of the first dinosaurs discovered by scientists and, in 1824, became the first to receive a name.
The herbivores who left footprints were part of the group called Sauropods, known for their long necks, four pillars similar, small heads and teeth adapted to consume vegetables. One possibility is Cetiosaurus, about 16 meters long.
The theopod footprints each measure about 45cm in length, with marks of three toes, pillows that houses the muscles of the feet and sharp claws. The outfits of the sauropod are different, about 50cm long and rounded shape, widening a little in front and sometimes preserving marks of four short and stewards triangular fingers.
In total, about two dozen individual dinosaurs left the footprints. The researchers made digital models of each trail after observing the site with a drone.
These dinosaurs lived in the heart of a vast river estuary surrounded by forest areas composed of conifers, ferns and ginkgos, such as those that still exist today.
The footprints of the theopods and sauropods were found in lagoon environments, while the tracks of other dinosaurs – stegosaurs and ornithopods plant eaters – were found in drier landscapes away from the lagoons.
They shared this crocodile ecosystem, salamanders, lizards, turtles, small mammals and flying reptiles called pterosaurs. This period is prior to the first known bird fossils.
“Footprints of this age are very rare, but when we find them, they provide direct evidence of behavior,” said the paleontologist of the University of Edinburgh and senior author of the study, Steve Brusatte.
Brusatte highlighted the intersection of prehistory with Scottish history. Bonnie Prince Charlie – a romanticized hero of Scotland – survived his English escape, although his aspirations to royalty and Jacobite rebellion who led were frustrated.
“When the prince was running to save his life, he was running over the footsteps of Jurassic dinosaurs. And he got it. He hid in Skye For a while and then managed to escape to France, ”said Brusatte.
This content was originally published in footprints on Skye Island offer a quiet portrait of the life of dinosaurs on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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