Gobi Desert Dinosaur Footprint May Be Largest Ever Found

In Mongolia's Gobi Desert, a dinosaur footprint discovered there may be the largest ever found, measuring more than three feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide.

A team made up of researchers from Okayama University of Science and the Center of Paleontology under the Mongolian Academy of Sciences made the discovery in August in a geologic layer that scientists think was created during the Cretaceous Period some 70 million to 90 million years ago, Japan's Kyodo News reported.

The footprint, found as a cast, was believed to have been made by a plant-eating sauropod similar to the titanosaurus, researchers from Okayama University, told Kyodo News. Similar-sized footprints have also been found in Morocco and France.

"A whole skeleton of a giant dinosaur that left such a massive footprint has yet to be uncovered in Mongolia," Shinobu Ishigaki, a professor from the Okayama University of Science and the leader of Japan's research team, told the Toyko newspaper Asahi Shimbum. "A fossilized skeleton of such a dinosaur is expected to be eventually discovered."

Masateru Shibata, a lecturer and researcher with the Dinosaur Research Institute at Fukui Prefectural University, told Asahi Shimbum that even though fossils of the dinosaur have not been found yet, footprints are just as valuable.

"Footprints are living evidence of dinosaurs," Shibata told Asahi Shimbum. "There is a lot of information that can be obtained only from footprints, including the shape of dinosaur feet as well as the ways in which they walked.

"Most footprints of giant dinosaurs are fuzzy. This discovery is valuable because the shape of a claw is clearly identifiable as well as the sole of the dinosaur’s foot," Shibata added.

The Washington Post reported that the Gobi Desert has been a hot bed for dinosaur footprints since paleontologists started looking for them there in 1957. Between 1995 and 2008, researchers have discovered more than 20,000 preserved tracks belonging to a variety of dinosaur species, the Post noted.

The newspaper said the August discovery was unique because it was found in a part of the desert were no footprints have been found before.

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