Skye fossils reveal secrets of first mammals to walk the Earth

Dr Panciroli said Skye’s fossils are putting Scotland firmly on the map when it comes to understanding mammal evolution and “this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what they can tell us”.

The Krusatodon fossil discovered on Skye in 2016 is the only juvenile Jurassic mammal skeleton known to science, while the adult, found in the 1970s, is one of the most intact mammal skeletons from this time period in the world.

“To find two such rare fossil skeletons of the same species at different growth stages has rewritten our understanding of the lives of the very earliest mammals,” said Dr Stig Walsh, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeobiology at National Museums Scotland and co-researcher on the study.

The study, published in Nature, external, also involved researchers from the American Museum of Natural History, University of Chicago, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, and Queen Mary University of London.