The world’s largest dinosaur
footprint has been uncovered in the Mongolian desert. Nearly the size of
a full grown man, the footprint is said to belong to the Titanosaur,
which lived on earth approximately 70 to 90 million years ago.
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The world's largest dinosaur footprint has been uncovered in the
Mongolian desert.
Nearly the size of a full grown man, the footprint is said to belong to
the Titanosaur, which lived on earth approximately 70 to 90 million
years ago.
This discovery was made by a group of researchers from Japan
and Mongolia at the Gobi Desert. The Okayama University of Science has
been involved in the study along with the Mongolian Academy of Science.
Most of the discoveries on dinosaur footprints were made in the
Mongolian dessert. Yet, this fossil discovery of the Titanosaur is their
biggest to date.
"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," reads the
statement issued by the Okayama University of Science.
The Titanosaur footprint measures 20 meters tall and 30
meters long. Named after the mythological deities of ancient Greece, the
Titans, Titanosaur means "titanic lizard." It belongs to the species of
dinosaurs called sauropods which was first described in 1877 by
Lydekker.
Known as herbivores, Titanosaurs are known to have the
longest neck among all the dinosaur species that inhabited the earth.
The babies of these dinosaurs weighted 3 to 4 kg at the time of birth,
but research claims these species grew swiftly in weeks with a weight
amounting to 30kgs. It takes around 20 years for a Titanosaur baby to
develop into a full grown dinosaur.
Other similar-sized dinosaur footprints have been uncovered
in France and Morocco, which clearly reveal the nails of the dinosaurs.
This discovery could help researchers understand how dinosaurs walked.
On the other hand, Russian scientists have uncovered a yet
unidentified fossil remains from
the Kemerovo region of Siberia. Head of the Laboratory of Mesozoic and
Cenozoic Continental Ecosystems at the Tomsk State University, Sergei
Leschchinsky further adds that they have yet to categorize the finding
as a reptile or dinosaur.
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