|
|
World’s largest dino footprints found
Jessica Hamzelou, reporter
A pair of amateur fossil enthusiasts have uncovered the world’s biggest dinosaur footprints. Found in the Jura plateau near the south-eastern city of Lyon, the prints are thought to belong to a giant vegetarian sauropod.
The round prints are about one and a half metres wide, which palaeontologists at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) reckon were made by animals around 7.5 metres tall, weighing around 40 tonnes.
Although they were discovered in April, the footprints weren’t verified until Tuesday by a team at the University of Lyon, which included Pierre Hantzpergue.
According to French newspapers, the tracks were revealed by local deforestation.
The prints were left by the enormous dinosaurs in 150-million-year-old chalky sediment, which dates back to the Upper Jurassic period.
What makes the find even more significant is the geographical spread of the tracks, which the CNRS say extend over dozens if not hundreds of metres.
The dinosaur that made these tracks, however, is not the largest known. This title is thought to belong to Amphicoelias fragillimus, which paleontologists reckon weighed in at around 122 tonnes.
