World's Largest Dinosaur Footprints Discovered, And They're Massive

There's something about dinosaurs, isn't there? They just bring out the childlike fascination in you, don't they? How can anyone not marvel at the beasts that towered over the world hundreds of millions of years ago and left behind only impossibly large bones? Anytime someone finds new evidence of the lives they lived, you have to sit up and take notice. Just check out this huge new find out of Australia – and we do mean huge.

Scientists working in Western Australia have discovered the world's largest dinosaur footprints, measuring in at 1.7 meters – just over 5.5 feet.

The next biggest after these footprints, found in a Mongolian desert in 2016, are just 1.06 meters in size, or a little under 3.5 feet.

Dr. Steve Salisbury of the University of Queensland has been tracking the journeys of dinosaurs along the coast of Western Australia and says that the sauropods that made the prints would have been "enormous."

"Most people would be able to fit inside tracks that big," he said, "and they indicate animals that are probably around 5.3 to 5.5 meters at the hip." That's at least 17 feet tall at the hip for those keeping track.

Dr. Salisbury says that the dinosaurs that left the prints lived about 130 million years ago.

But what's most exciting for his team of paleontologists is the variety of tracks in the area, with 21 different prints found so far. "With 21 different types of tracks represented, that makes it the most diverse dinosaur footprint fauna in the world," he said.

Much of the area would have been a river delta 130 million years ago, with plenty of muddy, wet sand, making it rife with dinosaur tracks.

The area has gained National Heritage status, and they've been noticed there for so long that they're included in the song cycles of local Indigenous people. 

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