Researchers in Mongolia have unearthed world’s largest dinosaur footprint that is nearly a size of a full grown man. The footprint belongs to a species of dinosaur named Titanosaur that lived on Earth nearly 70 million years ago.
Newly discovered world’s largest footprint of gigantic dinosaur measures 106 centimetres (42 inches) long and 77 centimetres wide. The giant fossil was discovered by a team of archaeologist from Mongolia and Japan. Professor Shinobu Ishigaki from the Okayama University of Science is posing next to recovered footprint in the pic in order to show how big the fossil is.
Mongolia is known for dinosaur footprints and several such footprints have been discovered in the past in Mongolian desert. However, the biggest fossil was unearthed last month in a geological layer and after further investigation archaeologists revealed that the fossil belongs to a period ranging between 70 million years and 90 million years ago.
“This is a very rare discovery as it’s a well-preserved fossil footprint that is more than a metre long with imprints of its claws,” said a statement issued by Okayama University of Science.
The footprint cast is natural and it might have formed after the gigantic creature stomped once on the muddy ground and sand flowed into the dents. According to researchers, it belongs to Titanosaur that was nearly 30 metres long and 20 metres tall.
Archaeologists unearthed world’s largest dinosaur footprint as big as man
Titanosaurs were herbivorous and ate plants to gain energy. Babies of these giant species weighed 3kg to 4 kg (average human baby weighs same) at the time of birth. However, the growth of baby was immense and it turned to a size of a large dog within few weeks weighing around 30 kgs. It took nearly 20 years for the Titanosaur baby to become a full grown dinosaur. These dinosaurs are known to have long neck, in fact, longest neck among all the species that ever lived on Earth.