"Bigfoot": researchers report the largest dinosaur foot in the world



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  Bigfoot Dinosaur   Bigfoot Dinosaur

The undated artistic representation shows a brachiosaur or close relative. According to a new study, the world's largest dinosaur foot was discovered in the US federal government Wyoming. Photo: Davide Bonadonna

Source: dpa-infocom GmbH

He must have been a giant – and he lived on a very big foot: the fingerprint of a dinosaur found in the US measured near One meter – a new record.

M ünchen (dpa) – The researchers identified the world's largest foot of a dinosaur. An international team of researchers from Munich has explored the fossilized foot, discovered 20 years ago in the US state of Wyoming.

It measured nearly one meter in width and was therefore larger than all known results, write the German researchers, Switzerland and the United States in the newspaper "PeerJ". They point out that although larger footprints are known, but not bigger foot.

Among other things, because of the metatarsal bone, researchers clbadify "Bigfoot" as close relatives of brachiosaurs. With their long necks and tails, these dinosaurs became known in the 1993 film Jurbadic Park. They were next to the herbivorous Brontosaurus and the Diplodocus genus for the largest terrestrial animals that ever lived on this planet. Only a few other dinosaurs were larger, such as Argentinosaurus or Patagonia, which each measured 40 meters long and weighed between 70 and 90 tons

According to measurements, "Bigfoot" had a height of four meters in the basin. It could have measured at least ten meters high and weighed between 30 and 40 tons.

Anthony Maltese, lead author of the study, had dug up the foot in 1998. It did not fit a small, almost complete Brachiosaurius found in the same place as well as a small Diplodocidus. It was immediately clear that the piece came from an extremely large animal, writes Maltese. As a result, the specimen was nicknamed "Bigfoot".

Maltese researchers Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda, and David Burnham have now used 3D scans and other detailed measurements to compare the find with sauropod feet of many species. They also found that the Dinos of the Brachiosaurus group inhabited a vast area 150 years ago, from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming. "It's surprising," said Swiss paleontologist Tschopp. "Many other sauropods have inhabited smaller areas at this time."

The study also finds one of the most northerly discoveries of a Morrison training brachiosaurus that goes to Canada in the western United States and many dinosaur fossils

"The Jurbadic rocks of the western United States are very rich in sauropods. There were very big animals out there, "said dinosaur expert and curator of the Collection of Paleontology and Geology of the State of Bavaria, Oliver Rauhut, but the find was very interesting. "It is absolutely fascinating that so many of these great herbivores have lived together without eating their land."

Researchers are hoping for further discoveries on the rocks where "Bigfoot" died millions of years ago. There are other "fantastic dinosaur skeletons" included , which should be explored, said Maltese.

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