Photo: KUVP archives 
 
 The Black Hills mountain range, which stretches from South Dakota to Wyoming, is known for its lush forests, scenic waterfalls, and dense, intricate cave systems. But 150 million years ago, humongous, long-necked dinosaurs called sauropods roamed there—and scientists just identified one of their colossal, fossilized feet. 
 
 
 
 The nearly complete foot fossil, made up of 13 bones, was unearthed in 1998 from a body of rock spanning multiple states called the Morrison Formation. That area has produced a wealth of dinosaur fossils from the Late Jurassic Period, or between 155 million to 148 million years ago. Scientists there have dug up diplodocuses, allosauruses, stegosauruses—the list goes on. The staggering amount of fossils there, compared to the available scientists to examine them, is why it took two decades to identify this massive foot. 
 
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 The foot seems to have belonged to some kind of brachiosaur that stretched 80 feet long, the researchers wrote in their paper published Tuesday in PeerJ. To figure that out, they used a 3D scanning technique to make computerized images of the foot bones, and compared them to other sauropod foot fossils. 
 
 “It very likely is a type of brachiosaur, the kind that got famous in Jurassic Park (and then got horribly murdered in Fallen Kingdom),” Femke Holwerda, a study-author and paleontologist at the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology and Geology, told Gizmodo via email. “The only problem is that feet can rarely be diagnostic down to species level, hence the assignment to brachiosaur and not to any specific species.” 
 
 The same dig site where this foot was unearthed in northeastern Wyoming also contained a separate, smaller, nearly complete brachiosaur, and a handful of other long-necked dinosaurs like diplodocuses and camarasaurs. The research team was surprised to see a brachiosaur that far north, because the animals had been thought to occupy much smaller, more southern chunks of land. 
 
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 “This brachiosaur showing up in Black Hills in Wyoming brings up some questions,” says David Burnham, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas who worked on the paper. “Is it a different species than the brachiosaurs down south? Or maybe they were migrating north to south? It’s several hundreds of miles from where we thought these guys were, so we have a lot of new questions. It’s great—I welcome the new questions and opportunities for further research.” 
 
 Illustration: Nobu Tamura (Wikimedia Commons) 
 
 Still, the huge brachiosaur foot is notable for more than just its surprising location. At just under a meter wide, the researchers said it is the largest sauropod foot ever discovered. Philip Mannion, a paleontologist at Imperial College London who wasn’t involved with this discovery, agreed with that assessment. 
 
 
 
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 “The metatarsals do seem to be longer than those of any other known sauropod dinosaur, so in that regard this is probably the largest foot ever discovered,” Mannion told Gizmodo. “There are other species with feet that aren’t much smaller, though.” 
 
 
 
 Plus, as Mannion and the study authors point out, we’ve never found the feet of the world’s largest sauropods, the titanosaur and argentinosaurus, who would surely surpass this brachiosaur in foot size. We haven’t seen those dinosaurs’ feet yet because foot fossils are notoriously elusive, according to study author Anthony Maltese, a paleontologist at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Colorado. Throughout history, they’ve had a much higher chance of being lost in waterways or eaten by scavengers because they’re so small compared to the rest of the animal. That makes the most recent discovery an especially exciting one. 
 
 “It’s great to finally have a brachiosaurus foot,” Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, a paleontologist at Dickinson State University who wasn’t involved with this work, told Gizmodo. “Getting a decently complete foot for any dinosaur is a lucky find. As we keep digging and finding more bones, we are getting an idea of just how huge each dinosaur species can truly grow. I think we are going to keep breaking the record for ‘biggest’ over and over for many years to come.” 
 
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 [PeerJ] ||||| 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." 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. 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. ||||| Material and association 
 
 The pes described herein consists of an astragalus (KUVP 142200), metatarsals I to V, four non-ungual pedal phalanges, one ungual (KUVP 129724), an additional non-ungual phalanx (KUVP 133862), and a second ungual (KUVP 144767). It was found at the Bobcat Pit site in Weston County in the Black Hills in north-eastern Wyoming (see Fig. 1A). It has been mentioned in Bader, Hasiotis & Martin (2009), but never described in detail. 
 
 Figure 1: Location (A) and quarry maps (B, C) of Bobcat Pit in Weston County, Wyoming. Camarasaurus skeletons KUVP 129713 and 129716. Quarry maps modified from The astragalus and pes described herein (KUVP 129724, 133862, 142200, 144767) were found associated with theskeletons KUVP 129713 and 129716. Quarry maps modified from Bader, Hasiotis & Martin 2009 : figs 2, 4. 
 
 In addition to the elements belonging to the pes described herein (KUVP 129724, 133862, 142200, 144767, Figs. 1B and 1C), Bobcat Pit has produced several specimens belonging to camarasaurid, diplodocid, and brachiosaurid sauropods (Bader, Hasiotis & Martin, 2009). During a 1998 expedition led by the University of Kansas, the sauropod pes was found underneath the tail of the Camarasaurus KUVP 129716, with the phalanges scattered around the skeleton (Fig. 1C). Metatarsals I, II, III, and IV of KUVP 129724 were closely associated, whereas metatarsal V and a pedal ungual (likely from digit III) were found nearby. Three proximal phalanges (field numbers BP013, BP194 and BP208; see Table 1) were recovered about a meter away from the metatarsals with a proximal phalanx (field number BP185) slightly further away. Phalanx KUVP 133862 was discovered during preparation of a large field jacket containing caudal elements of Camarasaurus KUVP 129716. The astragalus KUVP 142200 was collected beneath KUVP 129713. A second large claw, likely php I-2, was discovered when the site was later reopened by another excavation crew. This claw was molded and a high fidelity cast was donated to KUVP, bearing the number KUVP 144767. All elements described herein are referred to the same animal as KUVP 129724 due to their great size, relative proximity in the quarry, and lack of any duplication in the elements. 
 
 Element Length Proximal width Distal width Field number Astragalus (KUVP 142200) 246 370 – mt I 266 133 167 BP099 mt II 290 163 183 BP098 mt III 332 134* 156 BP097 mt IV 329 154 134* BP145 mt V 269 182 91 BP096 php I-1 101 132 102 BP208 php II-1 100 147 130 BP013 php III-1 81 135 123 BP194 php ?IV-1 80 99 105 BP185 php ?V-1 (KUVP 133862) 52 68 – Ungual ?III 185 52 BP014 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.5250/table-1 
 
 Based on comparisons with articulated camarasaurid and brachiosaurid pedes, we interpret the phalanges as php I-1, II-1, III-1, and possible IV-1 and V-1, and the unguals as probably representing unguals I and III. However, given that the specimen was found disarticulated and incomplete, we refrain from reconstructing a pedal formula. 
 
 The elements of KUVP 129724, the astragalus KUVP 142200, the phalanx KUVP 133862, and the ungual KUVP 144767 were not consistent in size with the Camarasaurus specimen they were found with (KUVP 129716), nor with a second, larger Camarasaurus specimen from the same quarry. The Camarasaurus KUVP 129716 was nearly complete and included almost all the pedal material in articulation. All pedal bones from this specimen are duplicated in KUVP 129724, so it is certain the large pes does not belong to this specimen. A larger Camarasaurus (KUVP 129713) was excavated in 1997, approximately 7m adjacent in the same quarry. However, this individual is also much smaller than the new pes. Finally, all proximal phalanges display a peculiar bone texture on their proximal articular surfaces. These surfaces are marked by irregularly undulating grooves generally extending from the margins towards the center. Such a texture is likely due to remodeling in response to specific stresses in vivo, supporting the interpretation that all phalanges belong to a single pes, because all the joints between metatarsals and phalanges seem to be equally affected. As specimens at this locality generally occur as discreet skeletons rather than a mass of bonebed elements, these considerations suggest it is very likely the pes is a slightly scattered assemblage of elements from a single individual. ||||| As it turns out, "Bigfoot" was a dinosaur--a giant, plant-eating one. A new study based on fossils excavated in Wyoming reveals the largest dinosaur foot ever found and identifies it as a brachiosaur, a type of sauropod dinosaur that was among the largest land animals on Earth. The work, published today in the journal PeerJ, also confirms that 150 million years ago brachiosaurs called a huge swath of North America home. 
 
 "There are tracks and other incomplete skeletons from Australia and Argentina that seem to be from even bigger animals, but those gigantic skeletons were found without the feet. This beast was clearly one of the biggest that ever walked in North America," said co-author Emanuel Tschopp, a Theodore Roosevelt Richard Gilder Graduate School postdoctoral fellow in the American Museum of Natural History's Division of Paleontology and author on the new PeerJ study. 
 
 The foot was excavated in 1998 by an expedition team from the University of Kansas which included Anthony Maltese, now at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado. 
 
 "It was immediately apparent that the foot, nearly a meter wide, was from an extremely large animal, so the specimen was nicknamed 'Bigfoot,'" said Maltese, lead author of the study. 
 
 Now, after thorough preparation and examination, Maltese, Tschopp, and collaborators have identified the foot as belonging to an animal very closely related to the long-necked, long-tailed sauropod Brachiosaurus, best known as the sauropod featured in the movie Jurassic Park. The researchers used 3D scanning and detailed measurements to compare the specimen to feet from numerous dinosaur species. Their research confirms that this foot is the largest dinosaur foot discovered to date. 
 
 The study also shows that brachiosaurs inhabited a huge area from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming. 
 
 "This is surprising," Tschopp said. "Many other sauropod dinosaurs seem to have inhabited smaller areas during that time." 
 
 The rock outcrops that produced this fossil--the Black Hills region of Wyoming, famous today for tourist attractions like Deadwood and Mount Rushmore--hold many more fantastic dinosaur skeletons, says Maltese. The research team hopes to continue their studies on fossils from the Black Hills region. 
 
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 Other authors on the study include Femke Holwerda, a Ph.D.-degree candidate at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany, and David Burnham, a researcher at the University of Kansas. 
 
 Funding was provided through the Europasaurus-Projekt by the Volkswagen Foundation and the American Museum of Natural History's Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Fund and Richard Gilder Graduate School. 
 
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 The American Museum of Natural History, founded in 1869, is one of the world's preeminent scientific, educational, and cultural institutions. The Museum encompasses 45 permanent exhibition halls, including those in the Rose Center for Earth and Space and the Hayden Planetarium, as well as galleries for temporary exhibitions. It is home to the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial, New York State's official memorial to its 33rd governor and the nation's 26th president, and a tribute to Roosevelt's enduring legacy of conservation. The Museum's five active research divisions and three cross-disciplinary centers support approximately 200 scientists, whose work draws on a world-class permanent collection of more than 34 million specimens and artifacts, as well as specialized collections for frozen tissue and genomic and astrophysical data, and one of the largest natural history libraries in the world. Through its Richard Gilder Graduate School, it is the only American museum authorized to grant the Ph.D. degree. Beginning in 2015, the Richard Gilder Graduate School also began granting the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree, the only such freestanding museum program. Annual visitation has grown to approximately 5 million, and the Museum's exhibitions and Space Shows are seen by millions more in venues on six continents. The Museum's website, mobile apps, and MOOCs (massive open online courses) extend its scientific research and collections, exhibitions, and educational programs to additional audiences around the globe. Visit amnh.org for more information. 
 
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 Become a fan of the Museum on Facebook at facebook.com/naturalhistory, follow us on Twitter at @AMNH, on Instagram at @AMNH, and on Tumblr at amnhnyc. ||||| A photo from the 1998 excavation, with the brachiosaur foot bones below a tail of a Camarasaurus dinosaur. 
 
 While basketball player LeBron James' shoe size (15) is pretty big, it's nowhere near the considerable foot size of the dinosaur with the largest feet on record, a new study finds. 
 
 That honor goes to a long-necked dinosaur of "enormous proportions" that lumbered around about 150 million years ago in what is now Wyoming, the researchers said. 
 
 At nearly 3.2 feet (1 meter) long, "it is the largest dinosaur foot that was ever found, which must have belonged to one of the largest land animals ever," study co-researcher Emanuel Tschopp, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, told Live Science. [Titanosaur Photos: Meet the Largest Dinosaur on Record] 
 
 Researchers found the jumbo-size foot fossils in 1998, buried underneath the tail of a long-necked Camarasaurus dinosaur. These fossils are part of the Morrison Formation — a rocky expanse known for its Late Jurassic period fossils, especially its sauropods (long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs that walked on all fours), such as Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus. Though the scientists aren't sure what species the fossils came from, it's likely a close relative of Brachiosaurus, which made a cameo in the 1993 film "Jurassic Park." 
 
 A Brachiosaurus nibbles from an Araucaria tree. These dinosaurs had enormous necks and relatively short tails. The newly described dinosaur was likely a close relative of Brachiosaurus. Credit: Copyright Davide Bonadonna, Milan, Italy 
 
 During the dig, the paleontologists found "several individuals of various ages and from at least three different species," Tschopp said. "This foot definitely belonged to the largest individual preserved in this quarry, but unfortunately, nothing else of it was found." 
 
 The foot — a left hindfoot — was so massive that the paleontologists from the 1998 dig nicknamed it "Bigfoot." But despite its gargantuan size, the foot hadn't been described in detail until now, said lead study researcher Anthony Maltese, curator of the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado, who also took part in the 1998 excavation. 
 
 To investigate, Maltese and his colleagues used a 3D-scanning technique to take precise measurements of the mystery dinosaur's foot and then compared those with the foot bones of other sauropods. They found that the beast was closely related to Brachiosaurus and that it likely stood about a whopping 13 feet (4 m) tall at the hip. 
 
 Given the dinosaur's fantastic foot size, it's safe to call it a titanosaur — the largest group of sauropod dinosaurs — which includes the 122-foot-long (37 m) Patagotitan and the 115-foot-long (35 m) Argentinosaurus. 
 
 The newly described foot bones are slightly larger than those of the long-necked Giraffatitan sauropod dinosaur and "considerably larger than those of Dreadnoughtus, which was reported to be one of the largest sauropods ever found." Even so, it's by no means the largest dinosaur on record, the researchers wrote in the study. That's because foot size doesn't directly equate to body size. 
 
 "Some of the largest sauropods such as Argentinosaurus or Patagotitan do not preserve pedal [foot] material, but have femur lengths that considerably exceed our estimate for [the newly discovered dinosaur]," the researchers wrote in the study. For instance, the mystery dinosaur has an estimated femur length of 6.7 feet (2 m), while Argentinosaurus had a femur length of 8.3 feet (2.5 m) and Patagotitan's was 7.7 feet (2.3 m), the researchers said. 
 
 The finding also reveals that large brachiosaurs and their close relatives inhabited huge geographical swaths 150 million years ago, from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming. 
 
 "This is surprising," Tschopp said in a statement. "Many other sauropod dinosaurs seem to have inhabited smaller areas during that time." 
 
 The study was published online today (July 24) in the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences. 
 
 Original article on Live Science.
– "Bigfoot" has been found, just not the apish version. An international team of paleontologists has announced the discovery of the largest known dinosaur foot, which belonged to a close relative of the Brachiosaurus now dubbed "Bigfoot." Appropriately so, as a nearly complete left hind-foot fossil totaling 13 bones, found two decades ago in the Black Hills area of Wyoming alongside separate and smaller brachiosaur remains, shows the 80-foot-long sauropod had feet that were about 3 feet wide, report Live Science and Gizmodo. "There are tracks and other incomplete skeletons from Australia and Argentina that seem to be from even bigger animals, but those gigantic skeletons were found without the feet," researcher Emanuel Tschopp explains in a release. Described in journal PeerJ, "this beast was clearly one of the biggest that ever walked in North America." Researchers, who compared the foot to those of other dino species, believe it came from a brachiosaur that lived 150 million years ago, making it the first brachiosaur foot known to come from North America's Late Jurassic Period, per Mashable. Though it's not enough to identify a specific species, it's evidence that brachiosaurs covered a larger area of North America, from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming, than previously known. "This is surprising" as "many other sauropod dinosaurs seem to have inhabited smaller areas," Tschopp says. Noting the discovery occurred "several hundreds of miles from where we thought these guys were," fellow researcher David Burnham will look to answer new questions: "Is it a different species than the brachiosaurs down south? Or maybe they were migrating north to south?" (These tire-sized dino prints hid in plain sight.)