The largest dinosaur foot ever belongs to 'Bigfoot'

Shannon Connellan
Updated

The largest dinosaur foot ever found, belonging to one of the largest land animals this planet's ever seen, surely deserves the title "Bigfoot" more than Sasquatch.

Excavated in 1998 by an expedition from the University of Kansas, and described in a new study published in PeerJ – the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences, "Bigfoot" was discovered in the Black Hills area of Wyoming. Scientists determined the dinosaur — a very close relative of Brachiosaurus — had the biggest feet of any sauropod, and roamed the area 150 million years ago. 

Crew member Anthony Maltese, who is also the lead author of the study, writes that the foot was nearly 1 meter wide. It didn't belong to the largest dinosaur ever discovered, the study said, but "Bigfoot" did have particularly large feet.

Maltese and his team of researchers from the U.S., Switzerland, and Germany have identified the enormous foot as belonging to an animal related to Brachiosaurus, a member of the sauropod family — you know, the dinosaurs with the long necks and tails. It's not only the largest sauropod foot ever identified, but also the first confirmed brachiosaur foot from the Late Jurassic period of North America.

A rendering of Brachiosaurus-araucaria, or "Bigfoot."
A rendering of Brachiosaurus-araucaria, or "Bigfoot."

Image: Davide Bonadonna

The Black Hills, famous for Mount Rushmore, were home to plant-eating giants like Camarasaurus and Diplodocus, some of the largest land animals that ever lived on Earth. 

Photograph from the excavations in 1998, with the brachiosaur foot bones below a tail of a Camarasaurus. A University of Kansas expedition crew member is in there for scale.
Photograph from the excavations in 1998, with the brachiosaur foot bones below a tail of a Camarasaurus. A University of Kansas expedition crew member is in there for scale.

Image: KUVP archives

So, just how did the team connect "Bigfoot" to sauropods, and then determine it was, in fact, related to Brachiosaurus? Maltese and team members Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda, and David Burnham used 3D scanning and highly detailed measurements to compare the large specimen to various species of sauropod, including Camarasaurus and Diplodocus. 

By comparing elements of the foot — like metatarsals and phalanges — with existing examples, the scientists determined it was neither of those two, but more likely that of a brachiosaurid.  

And there's still plenty to discover. Maltese said in a press statement that the rock outcrops that produced this fossil hold many more "fantastic dinosaur skeletons," and that the research team will press on with their studies from there. 

Personally, I'd like to know if "Bigfoot" sneezed as dramatically as the Brachiosaurus in Jurassic Park.

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