Latest news with #Blakesley
Boston Globe
03-04-2025
- Science
- Boston Globe
Footprints show carnivorous dinosaurs shared watering hole with prey
'It was kind of the service station for the Middle Jurassic,' said Blakesley. 'The dinosaurs would have come down from the surrounding land masses, drop down for a drink, move on. This was very much a transient spot.' Advertisement The footprints at Prince Charles's Point, on the island's northern peninsula, were first discovered in 2019 by a local couple who had observed some odd impressions while kayaking along the shoreline. Blakesley, who had just finished his freshman year at the time, inspected the area at the couple's behest and found a three-toed dinosaur footprint in the sandstone. 'It was slightly raised and looked weathered, but it was really crisp and sharp,' Blakesley said. 'You could see the toes, the claw marks.' In the years that followed, Blakesley and researchers with the University of Edinburgh uncovered dozens more footprints in the area -- he estimated between 150 and 200 -- and analyzed 131 for their study. They determined that some of the prints, such as the first three-toed one that Blakesley uncovered, were made by carnivore theropods, likely Megalosauruses, an ancestor of the formidable Tyrannosaurus rex. Other rounded prints were likely made by herbivore sauropods such as the Cetiosaurus, the precursor to the brontosaurus. Advertisement From the footprints, which ranged 9.8 to 23.6 inches in length, the researchers were able to estimate the dinosaurs' hip height and length of strides. The three-toed theropods were likely about the size of a jeep, Blakesley said, and moved at what humans would consider a jog, about 5 miles per hour. The large sauropods were likely the height of two to three elephants and moved at half the walking speed of a human, about 1.5 miles an hour. Both types of dinosaurs would have had to have enough weight to leave behind such footprints, sinking through the sand to the hardened mud below, and that could last until this day. Blakesley likened the analysis of the footprints to reading a page in a book. 'It tells us a great deal about the dinosaurs that live along the prehistoric lagoonal shoreline,' he said. It also requires a bit of imagination, he said. During the Middle Jurassic Period, the area would have had a warm, humid tropical climate, rather than the chilled wind and rain that define Scottish weather today. The picturesque, mountainous landscape of Skye would have been flatter and dotted with similar freshwater lagoons. The tracks found at Skye never head southeast, raising questions of what was there while the dinosaurs were alive. 'Every time I go down to these footprints, I like to put my hand in the sole of these footprints,' Blakesley said. 'You close your eyes and just feel the tide going out and the mountains rising and falling, the cacophony of a million birdsongs gone by and you're back in this wild, exotic time, surrounded by these beasts.' Advertisement Mike Benton, a professor of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Bristol, said in an email that these footprints provide important insight into life during the Middle Jurassic Period, 'a time when we don't know much about dinosaurs and other land animals anywhere in the world.' 'They are really important because they represent fossilized behavior,' said Benton, who was not involved in the study. 'In other words, each example shows us exactly what a dinosaur was doing so many million years ago.' Last summer, scientists unearthed some 200 dinosaur footprints in southern England that researchers dubbed the 'dinosaur highway.' The footprints were believed to have been left behind by at least five dinosaurs, four Cetiosauruses and one Megalasaurus also from the Middle Jurassic Period, and showed some of them moving north. The footprints discovered on Skye are in the coastal area made famous by Bonnie Prince Charlie, the grandson of King James VII of Scotland who led a failed rising against the British throne. Prince Charles's Point was where he hid in 1746 while on the run from British troops following his side's defeat at the Battle of Culloden. 'It's a very surreal story and to think that Bonnie Prince Charlie may have seen these footprints, he may have run across them and wondered what they were,' Blakesley said. 'The footprints and the Bonnie Prince Charlie story, together they enrich Skye's local heritage.'
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Footprints show giant carnivorous dinosaurs and their plant-eating prey drank from same Scottish watering hole
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Tyrannosaurus rex ancestors and their plant-eating dinosaur prey would have congregated to drink water from a lagoon in what is now Scotland, new research suggests. Despite the fact that the carnivorous megalosaurs would have hunted the long-necked sauropods 167 million years ago, newly identified footprints show that both types of dinosaur would have milled around the edge of the lagoon, much like how modern-day animals congregate at watering holes, researchers from the University of Edinburgh say. Lead study author Tone Blakesley, a Masters graduate at the Scottish university, told CNN that he was among a small group that recognized an initial three footprints at the remote site on the Isle of Skye's Trotternish Peninsula in 2019. 'It was very exciting,' said Blakesley, who went on to document a total 131 footprints for the study, using a drone to take thousands of overlapping images of the site before producing digital 3D models of the footprints using specialist software. Because of their flatness, the footprints had previously been mistaken for fish resting burrows. Blakesley explained that this was due to the fact that there would have only been a thin layer of sand on top of a much harder layer of mud, leaving only a shallow indentation. They are preserved in 'exquisite detail,' he added. The footprints were made 167 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic period, an important time in dinosaur evolution, but little rock remains from the era, Blakesley said. As a result, the site in northern Scotland provides invaluable insights into the life of dinosaurs at the time. In stark contrast to the generally cold and blustery weather on Skye today, the area would have had a warm and humid subtropical climate during the Middle Jurassic, with a series of lagoons on a huge river estuary, Blakesley said. The sauropods were 'big lumbering giants which would have plodded along,' said Blakesley, who used the spacing of the footprints to estimate that they would have moved at speeds of around 2.5 kilometers per hour (1.55 miles per hour), around half the average human walking speed. They would have used their long necks to feed from the top of conifers and other trees, he added. The 'jeep-sized' megalosaurs, which are a kind of theropod, would have moved around the lagoon on their way from one area of vegetation to another — in search of prey or to seek shelter and rest — traveling much faster, at around 8 kilometers per hour (5 miles per hour), he said. 'It would have been quite a surreal place to stand in,' Blakesley said. But while the dinosaurs would have been in the area at around the same time, the footprints do not demonstrate any evidence that they interacted by the lagoon, and it is unlikely that they would have been side by side. 'That would be a disaster for the sauropods if that happened,' he said. 'The temptation for lunch… would have been too much for the theropods.' Blakesley continues to work at the site and discovered more dinosaur footprints on Tuesday, he told CNN. 'There's more footprints to find,' he said, adding that he is also investigating other dinosaur track sites on Skye as well as in the south of England. The study was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.
CNN
02-04-2025
- Science
- CNN
Footprints show giant carnivorous dinosaurs and their plant-eating prey drank from same Scottish watering hole
Tyrannosaurus rex ancestors and their plant-eating dinosaur prey would have congregated to drink water from a lagoon in what is now Scotland, new research suggests. Despite the fact that the carnivorous megalosaurs would have hunted the long-necked sauropods 167 million years ago, newly identified footprints show that both types of dinosaur would have milled around the edge of the lagoon, much like how modern-day animals congregate at watering holes, researchers from the University of Edinburgh say. Lead study author Tone Blakesley, a Masters graduate at the Scottish university, told CNN that he was among a small group that recognized an initial three footprints at the remote site on the Isle of Skye's Trotternish Peninsula in 2019. 'It was very exciting,' said Blakesley, who went on to document a total 131 footprints for the study, using a drone to take thousands of overlapping images of the site before producing digital 3D models of the footprints using specialist software. Because of their flatness, the footprints had previously been mistaken for fish resting burrows. Blakesley explained that this was due to the fact that there would have only been a thin layer of sand on top of a much harder layer of mud, leaving only a shallow indentation. They are preserved in 'exquisite detail,' he added. The footprints were made 167 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic period, an important time in dinosaur evolution, but little rock remains from the era, Blakesley said. As a result, the site in northern Scotland provides invaluable insights into the life of dinosaurs at the time. In stark contrast to the generally cold and blustery weather on Skye today, the area would have had a warm and humid subtropical climate during the Middle Jurassic, with a series of lagoons on a huge river estuary, Blakesley said. The sauropods were 'big lumbering giants which would have plodded along,' said Blakesley, who used the spacing of the footprints to estimate that they would have moved at speeds of around 2.5 kilometers per hour (1.55 miles per hour), around half the average human walking speed. They would have used their long necks to feed from the top of conifers and other trees, he added. The 'jeep-sized' megalosaurs, which are a kind of theropod, would have moved around the lagoon on their way from one area of vegetation to another — in search of prey or to seek shelter and rest — traveling much faster, at around 8 kilometers per hour (5 miles per hour), he said. 'It would have been quite a surreal place to stand in,' Blakesley said. But while the dinosaurs would have been in the area at around the same time, the footprints do not demonstrate any evidence that they interacted by the lagoon, and it is unlikely that they would have been side by side. 'That would be a disaster for the sauropods if that happened,' he said. 'The temptation for lunch… would have been too much for the theropods.' Blakesley continues to work at the site and discovered more dinosaur footprints on Tuesday, he told CNN. 'There's more footprints to find,' he said, adding that he is also investigating other dinosaur track sites on Skye as well as in the south of England. The study was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Dinosaur tracks uncovered at site of Bonnie Prince Charlie's refuge
When Bonnie Prince Charlie fled the Scottish Highlands after defeat at the Battle of Culloden, his route may have crossed the fossilised footsteps of massive meat-eating dinosaurs, researchers say. Newly discovered impressions at Prince Charles's Point on the Isle of Skye, where the Young Pretender is said to have hunkered down in 1746, reveal that megalosaurs, the carnivorous ancestors of the T rex, and enormous plant-eating sauropods gathered at the site when it was a shallow freshwater lagoon. Researchers analysed 131 fossilised footprints at the boulder-strewn shore and reconstructed the tracks the animals made across the landscape 167m years ago. Overlapping tracks suggest that the dinosaurs drank at the lagoon at about the same time. 'The footprints are mostly worn, but there are some fantastic examples that preserve really exquisite features which showcase these dinosaurs to the max,' said Tone Blakesley, the research lead on the project at the University of Edinburgh. 'It's surprising they haven't been found until now.' The most striking footprints are about 45cm long and belong to the three-toed megalosaur, a mid-Jurassic predator that sported sharp, curved claws. The sauropod footprints, which are round and slightly larger, had previously been mistaken for fish resting burrows. Using a drone, the scientists took thousands of overlapping images of the shoreline bordering the remote bay on the Trotternish peninsula. These were processed to reconstruct digital 3D models of the footprints. Their report is published in Plos One. 'Rocks that date to the mid-Jurassic are very rare, which is annoying for us researchers because this was a time when dinosaurs were rapidly evolving into a variety of forms,' Blakesley said. 'When we find dinosaur footprint sites like Prince Charles's Point, we can look at how these dinosaurs interacted with their environment and how they were distributed as well.' The footprints were created as the dinosaurs ambled through the shallow water lagoon. Over millions of years, the prints became preserved in the vast, rippled sandstone platform that stretches out to sea today. 'It looks like someone has pressed the pause button,' said Blakesley. 'It's a surreal feeling to see these footprints with my own eyes, to be able to put my hand in the sole of these footprints. You close your eyes and the tides wash back and you are in the mid-Jurassic. It's a spine-tingling feeling.' Researchers discovered the first tracks at the site five years ago, but it has taken successive trips to uncover the full extent of the impressions preserved in the rock. On one recent visit, the team found what appeared to be a theropod footprint inside a sauropod trackway, suggesting the predator was walking in the larger beast's footsteps. 'There are definitely more footprints to be found,' said Blakesley. 'It boggles my mind to think that when Bonnie Prince Charlie was being pursued by English troops, he might have been following the footprints of dinosaurs to safety on Skye,' said Steve Brusatte, a professor of palaeontology and evolution at Edinburgh. 'He wouldn't have known what a dinosaur was, as the word hadn't been invented then, and of course he had many other more pressing things on his mind, but I do wonder if he looked down and saw these big holes in the rock with finger and toe impressions and wondered what they might be.'
