Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
Footprints measuring 92cm in width found in Mongolia have raised the prospect of an as yet undiscovered skeleton of the largest bipedal dinosaur ever.
When it comes to giant dinosaurs, people tend to think of the massive meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex or the even bigger long-necked sauropods like Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus.
A group which rarely gets a mention, but also grew to titanic sizes, is the hadrosaurs.
These are often referred to as the duck-billed dinosaurs. Well known members of the group are Edmontosaurus and Parasaurolophus. These herbivores had batteries of teeth which they used to grind tough vegetation. They were, in fact, among the first animals ever to chew.
The largest species, Shantungsaurus giganteus, was 15m and 12–20 tonnes, making it longer and 2–3 times heavier than T. rex.
Hadrosaurs are facultative bipeds, meaning they could walk on 2 or 4 feet. This means the largest hadrosaurs were the largest bipedal animals to ever exist. And the dinosaur that left the tracks in Mongolia probably rivalled Shantungsaurus in size.
The dinosaur footprint site was found in 2018 and a follow up investigation in June 2024. It lies in the western Gobi Desert.
In total, the team found 14 trackways. One is a continuous track spanning 24m with 13 footprints, each 85cm across.
Team leader Shinobu Ishigaki, Director of the Okayama University of Science Museum of Dinosaur Research, says the trackways enable palaeontologists to study “posture, walking style, speed, and group behaviour – details that cannot be inferred from skeletal fossils”.
The giant footprints are believed to belong to a type of hadrosaur called a saurolophus.
“Our next goal is to uncover the full skeleton of the large saurolophus responsible for these footprints,” Ishigaki says.
