‘Bigfoot’ fossil is finally identified

A dinosaur fossil nicknamed “Bigfoot” – as it is the largest individual foot ever found – has finally been identified 20 years after it was unearthed in the US.

Scientists now know it belonged to a brachiosaur, one of the largest animals to walk the Earth.

Brachiosaurs, one of the stars of the movie Jurassic Park, were from the sauropod family – long-necked, four-footed plant-eaters that grew enormously large. The new research also shows that 150 million years ago brachiosaurs were widespread across North America.

Bigfoot was discovered in 1998 embedded in rock outcrops in the Black Hills region of Wyoming, a rich source of dinosaur bones and skeletons.

Lead scientist Dr Anthony Maltese, from Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Centre in Woodland Park, Colorado, said: “It was immediately apparent that the foot, nearly a metre wide, was from an extremely large animal.”

The team used 3D scanning and measurements to compare the foot to similar fossils from numerous dinosaur species. Dr Emanuel Tschopp, from the American Museum of Natural History, said: “This beast was clearly one of the biggest that ever walked in North America.”

The study showed that brachiosaurs inhabited a huge region stretching from eastern Utah to north-west Wyoming.