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The largest dinosaur foot ever found, belonging to one of the largest terrestrial animals this planet has ever seen, certainly deserves the title "Bigfoot" more than Sasquatch.
Excavation in 1998 by an expedition of the University of Kansas, and described in a new study published in PeerJ – the Journal of Life Sciences and the Environment "Bigfoot "was discovered in the Wyoming Black Hills area. Scientists have determined that the dinosaur – a close relative of Brachiosaurus – had the largest feet of any sauropod and roamed the region 150 million years ago.
The crewman Anthony Maltese, who is also the main author of the study, writes that the foot was almost 1 meter wide. According to the study, the largest dinosaur ever discovered, but "Bigfoot" had particularly large feet.
Maltese and his team of researchers from the United States, Switzerland, and Germany identified the enormous foot as belonging to an animal related to Brachiosaurus a member of the sauropod family – you know, dinosaurs with long necks and tails. This is not only the largest sauropod foot ever identified, but also the first confirmed brachiosaur foot dating back to the late Jurassic in North America.
A rendering of Brachiosaurus-araucaria, or "Bigfoot" »
The Black Hills, famous for Mount Rushmore, were home to vegetarian giants like Camarasaurus and Diplodocus some of the largest terrestrial animals that have ever lived on Earth.
Photograph of 1998 excavations, with the bones of the brachiosaurus's foot under the tail of a Camarasaurus. A member of the Kansas University Expedition Team is there for the scale.
So, how did the team connect Bigfoot to the sauropods and then determined that it was actually related to Brachiosaurus ? Maltese members and team Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda and David Burnham used 3D scanning and very detailed measurements to compare the large specimen to various species of sauropods, including Camarasaurus and Diplodocus .
Comparing elements of metatarsals and phalanges similar to feet – with existing examples, scientists determined that it was neither one nor the other, but rather a brachiosaurid .
And there is still a lot to discover. Maltese said in a press release that the rocky outcrops that produced this fossil contain many more "fantastic dinosaur skeletons", and that the research team will continue its studies from there.
Personally, I would like to know if "Bigfoot" sneezed as dramatically as Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park .
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