Amazing fossil puts Scotland's dinosaurs on the map

Dinosaur traces were not found in Scotland until recently. The first bone, from an adult Diplodocus-like dinosaur, was found in 1982. Since then progress has been steady, but slow, with the odd bone or fossil turning up regularly.

Dr Neil Clark, palaeontologist and curator of the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, acknowledges that Scotland is never going to turn up thousands of remains.

"We find about one bone a year," says Clark. "This means that at the current rate it will take over 200 years to collect a complete dinosaur."

Yet, what the country lacks in quantity is made up for in quality. It is, according to Clark, an immensely important place for fossils."There are a lot of first finds – things that bridge the gap between periods, or finds that add extensively to our knowledge of dinosaur history."

The richest seam for dinosaur bones and fossils is on the Isle of Skye, where most of the bones have been found. Around the famous Kilt rocks are middle Jurassic period stone (approximately 165 million years old) which sometimes break off to reveal bones from that period. So far amateur fossil-hunters have turned up a bone from a Ceratosauria (similar to the more well-known Coelophysis, a meat-eating bird-like dinosaur) and bones from a Stegosaurus-type beast. Yet, despite knowing that there are bones there, it is not a simple matter to retrieve them.

"The problem with Skye is that the Jurassic rocks are topped by about 20-30 metre thick volcanic rocks, which is very hard," Clark explains. "So you can't get at the remains. You have to wait for the fossil to fall out of the cliffs."

This waiting game has turned up a number of treats, and there is now a museum in nearby Staffa, run by Duguld Ross, that houses some of the finds. They have a number of bones and fossil footprints which "gives a picture of what the ecology of the island and the type of animals living on Skye at that time were," adds Clark.Since Scottish palaeontologists can't go digging for dinosaur bones a combination of luck and patience is needed. Luck was on Clark's side last year when Booth and Ross called him to look at the fossil footprints they had found. When he arrived in Skye, Clark was impressed. The footprints clearly showed an adult Coelophysis-like dinosaurs with five or six infants following behind.

"This could be the first evidence of parental care of the Therapod (meat-eating) dinosaur," explains Clark. But there was more to come.

Whilst exploring the area where the fossils were found Clark discovered another footprint lying nearby. He wrapped it up and took it back to Glasgow. When he looked at it more closely he made an astonishing discovery.

Inside the footprint of the adult was a tiny print made by a very young dinosaur. By comparing the length of this footprint, a minuscule 1.78 centimetres, to the length of the adult, 25 centimetres, Clark was confident that he was looking at a dinosaur less than a month old.

"It is really unusual to find small dinosaur footprints," explains Clark. "They are a lot lighter, so don't impress footprints so easily." The find has already helped to change ideas on baby dinosaur behaviour."Before finding this print we thought that hatchling dinosaurs stayed in the nest until much bigger. Yet, this clearly shows the baby out of the nest much at a much younger age than we thought."

Clark also had a hunch that his was the smallest footprint ever found. He was right, and he has told scotsman.com that on 20 September the Guinness World Records will be confirming this find as the smallest dinosaur footprint in the world.

Clark is delighted, but he'd like more.

"The fact that it's so small suggests a nesting site not too far away. To find that would be a big thing," he says.

The circumstances of fossil-hunting in Scotland dictate that he can do nothing but wait for it to turn up. However, they now know where to look and Clark remains optimistic that more interesting finds will follow.

"The thing with palaeontology is that whenever you find a fossil it's something that's not seen the light of day since it died. You can never tell what you'll find and there is always the potential of finding something new and exciting."

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