Càrn Bàn, Staffin, Isle of Skye

Kirsty Scott
Wednesday August 28, 2002

The Guardian

The dinosaur footprints being preserved.

Cathie Booth was walking her dog along a small sandy beach near her home on the island of Skye when a slab of sandstone, dislodged by recent summer storms, caught her eye.

"There was something on it," she said. "It looked like a big footprint; a foot with three large claws."

Mrs Booth, a hotelier, took the rock home to show her husband. When Paul Booth returned to the beach he uncovered 15 other fossilised remains, believed to be the oldest and largest dinosaur footprints found in Scotland.

Yesterday, fossil experts from Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum began preservation work on the site at Staffin, on the east of the island, to take casts and moulds of the Jurassic period prints.

Skye has long been known as Scotland's Jurassic isle due to the large number of dinosaur remains uncovered there, but researchers say the latest find is significant because the prints are the first dinosaur remains to be found still held in the rocks in the place in which they were formed.

Each footprint is made up of three huge toes in an arrow-head formation, up to 20 inches long, and it is thought they were most likely to have been made by a Megalosaurus, a 10m long carnivore which walked on two legs 165 million years ago. The footprint found by Mrs Booth is thought to be from a giant herbivore.

"The prints were running along an area of about 15m," said Mr Booth. "You could see this creature was just wandering back and forwards."

Neil Clark, leader of the research team, said it was crucial the prints were copied before the sea and storms destroyed them. The original footprints will remain in the rocks where they were found.

"Dinosaur remains are very rare in Scotland and every attempt should be made to protect them," said Dr Clark. "Sadly, these footprints were found on a beach that is battered by winter storms. It is important we have a permanent record of them before tidal erosion destroys them."

Original casts of the footprints will be kept at Skye's Staffin museum, and copies will be sent to the Hunterian Museum and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.