Scotland’s SauropodsOver 170 million years ago, on what is now the northern Scottish island of

Scotland’s SauropodsOver 170 million years ago, on what is now the northern Scottish island of Skye, Sauropods, some of the largest land animals on Earth walked through shallow coastal lagoon as indicated by several overprinting footprints. The new discovery makes the island of Skye the largest dinosaur site in Scotland and fills an important evolutionary gap in the history of these long-necked animals, which were some of the biggest of the dinosaurs. Palaeontologists at the University of Edinburgh first identified the tracks in sedimentary rock, representative of a shallow, salt water lagoon environment. The footprints, some which are 70cm in diameter, form part of a larger trackway and are the first sauropod tracks found in Scotland. Until now, the only sauropod fossil material in Scotland came from a few teeth fragments and bone. The tracks have been discovered in multiple rock layers, middle Jurassic in age, suggesting they were left by many dinosaurs over a period of time.As with any type of ichnofossil (trace fossil) it’s difficult to work out which species of Sauropod dinosaur was responsible for these tracks without any other fossil material. However, the researchers hypothesize they were produced by the distant relatives of a more well-documented species, Diplodocus. Furthermore, it’s estimated that these Sauropods weighed 10 tonnes and were at least 15 metres long. Tracks of are good indications of behavioural ecology, and in this instance clearly indicate these terrestrial dinosaurs waded into coastal lagoons (as was previously assumed).AHPSourceshttp://bit.ly/1NriZgHhttp://bit.ly/1TrVeWzhttp://bit.ly/1TrJtiHhttp://bbc.in/1Iq7F44Imagehttp://n.pr/1HEwYiD -- source link
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