Police Alert!
On December 28, 2016, Police Scotland were searching for a tall male in his late 40s to early 50s thought to be driving a white camper van. A crime had been committed on the Isle of Skye, with Lochaber and Skye Police conducting a manhunt. The news conjured up images of police helicopters and roadblocks around Skye to catch the criminal. What was the heinous crime causing all the fuss?
The man was thought to have been responsible for pouring plaster into some indentations on the beach by Staffin Pier on the island. On the face of it, this doesn’t sound like a very serious matter.
However, the rock, or rather the dents are very special. Unique, in fact. They are the footprints of a dinosaur that walked the location approximately 165 million years ago. The An Corran dinosaur footprints are one of only a handful of dinosaur prints known from what is now the United Kingdom. They are of international importance. At the time, scientists feared that the pouring of plaster cast into the footprints had caused damage to these rare Jurassic trace fossils.
Footprints in the sand
On a previous trip to Skye, I met up with Dugald Ross, the keeper of The Staffin Museum, and renowned Skye fossil finder and collector. Dugald showed me the dinosaur trackway at Staffin and explained the backstory. The An Corran footprints were discovered in 2002 by a local lass while walking her dog on the beach and subsequently researched by Dugald and Dr. Neil Clark of The Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow.
The trackway provides insight into an ancient dinosaur’s biomechanics and behavior. Paleontologists can infer how animals lived and moved from their footprints. By applying the science of ichnology, the study of animal “signs”, we can piece together elements of the identity, taxonomy, and biology of the long-extinct creatures that passed this way.
The dinosaur that made the tracks was a large bipedal three-toed predatory theropod, a carnivore, similar to Megalosaurus, and a relative of Tyrannosaurus rex. Sadly, but understandably, paleontologists cannot identify the species from trace fossils (footprints) alone. They need bones. Nevertheless, much can still be understood about the maker of the footprints.
