And you thought Shaquille O’Neal had big feet. One giant fossilized dinosaur footprint in the Gobi Desert has scientists mesmerized by what could be the world’s largest.
What exactly left a print 42 inches long and 30 inches wide, must have been massive. It’s believed to be the footprint of a Titanosaur, a long-necked dinosaur that could have grown to more than 100 feet long and 65 feet tall.
Paleontologists have not yet located a full skeleton of a Titanosaur but they expect to find one soon. For now, they will attempt to glean as much information they can from the print, which turns out is quite a lot, including how they walked and the shape of their feet.
It took lead researcher Shinobu Ishigaki with the Okayama University of Science in Japan laying next to the track for the full size to be appreciated. The print is one of several footprints discovered in the nearby region of the Mongolian desert.
It was cast into mud and sand flowed into the indent among a layer of sediment estimated to be formed between 70 million and 90 million years ago, according to a statement by the University.
“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,” researchers said in the statement.
