The United States claims the largest dinosaur foot ever discovered



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About 150 million years ago, a long-necked giant dinosaur stomped in the state of Wyoming in the US Midwest and left behind what researchers said Tuesday was the most big dinosaur foot ever discovered. found under a series of tail bones, extend about 1m wide and are believed to belong to a brachiosaurus, from a group of extinct herbivores called sauropods, said the PeerJ review results

This is an "exceptionally large foot, larger than any other sauropod bones known," lead author Anthony Maltese, of the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado, has reported to AFP in an email

"I am often asked what is the largest / longest / whatever superlative dinosaur has ever existed, and in this case I can actually provide an answer now, "he said.

To give an idea of ​​the creature's enormous size, his thigh bone measured more than 2m

That said, the Wyoming Brachiosaurus was not found in any way. is not the largest dinosaur known to man – other excavations have revealed fossils of animals

& # 39; Bigfoot & # 39;

"There are traces and other incomplete skeletons of Australia and Argentina that seem to come from even larger animals, but those gigantic skeletons were found without the feet, "said co-author Emanuel Tschopp, a postdoctoral fellow at the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History.

"This beast was clearly one of the largest that has ever walked in North America."

The discovery also extends the known northern range of brachiosaurs, showing that they were roaming a vast area of ​​Utah in Wyoming, Maltese adds. "Brachiosaurs are quite rare with regard to dinosaurs, and being able to extend their geographical range of several hundred kilometers is exciting and could help us better understand them," he said.

Maltese and colleagues from the University of Kansas first appeared – dubbed "Bigfoot" – in 1998 while he was an undergraduate student.

Then life and work came into play.

"It became very difficult to find time on the literature to complete the project," he told AFP.

"Fortunately with procrastination, it allowed me to assemble an absolutely lethal international search team and to have the ability to 3D scan all the bones to get the best data from any big dinosaur foot so far. "

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