見識一下，世界上比較大的恐龍腳化石

如今，美國的黑山(Black Hills)地區(qū)因為像戴德伍德(Deadwood)和拉什莫爾山(Mount Rushmore)這樣的旅游勝地而聞名，但是大約1.5億年前，它是已知的一種最大的恐龍的家園。這種恐龍屬于蜥腳類動物，擁有長長的脖子和尾巴。這些食草性的巨型恐龍，如同雷龍和梁龍一樣，是地球上存在過的最大陸地動物。

The foot described in a new scientific paper recently published in the open-access journal PeerJ -- the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences was excavated in 1998 by an expedition from the University of Kansas, with Anthony Maltese, lead author of the study, as member of the crew. As he writes, it was immediately apparent that the foot, nearly a meter wide, was from an extremely large animal -- so the specimen was nicknamed "Bigfoot."

最近新發(fā)表在開放獲取期刊《PeerJ——生命與環(huán)境科學雜志》(《PeerJ -- the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences 》)上的一篇科學論文中，描述了這只腳。1998年，堪薩斯大學(University of Kansas)的一支由安東尼·馬爾泰塞(Anthony Maltese)領(lǐng)導的考察隊挖掘了這只腳。就在他寫論文的時候，他們忽然發(fā)現(xiàn)了這只腳，它幾乎有一米寬。顯然它來自一種非常巨大的生物，這個標本因此被戲稱為“大腳怪”。

Photo courtesy of the KUVP archives

Now, after detailed preparation and study, Maltese and his international team of researchers from the USA, Switzerland, and Germany identified it as belonging to an animal very closely related to Brachiosaurus, famous for its appearance in the 1993 film Jurassic Park.

現(xiàn)在，經(jīng)過詳細的準備和研究，Maltese和他的來自美國、瑞士和德國的國際研究小組確認它與一種因出現(xiàn)在1993年的電影《侏羅紀公園》中而聞名的動物——腕龍有著非常近的親緣關(guān)系。

Anthony Maltese, Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda, and David Burnham used 3D scanning and detailed measurements to compare Bigfoot to sauropod feet from numerous species. Their research confirmed that this foot was unusually large. According to Holwerda, a Dutch PhD student at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Germany, comparisons with other sauropod feet showed that Bigfoot was clearly the largest dinosaur foot discovered to date.

Anthony Maltese, Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda和David Burnham使用3D掃描和詳細的測量來將大腳怪與各種不同的蜥腳類動物的腳相比較。他們的研究證實了這只腳確實異常的大。來自于路德維希馬克西米利安大學(the Ludwig Maximilians University，位于德國慕尼黑)的荷蘭博士霍韋達(Holwerda)說，與其他蜥腳類動物的腳相比，這只大腳顯然是迄今為止發(fā)現(xiàn)的最大的恐龍腳。

It also confirmed that brachiosaurs inhabited a huge area from eastern Utah to northwestern Wyoming, 150 million years ago. "This is surprising," says Tschopp, a Swiss paleontologist working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, "many other sauropod dinosaurs seem to have inhabited smaller areas during that time."

它也證實了1.5億年前腕足類恐龍生活在從猶他州東部到懷俄明州西北部的廣泛區(qū)域。“這令人驚訝，”在紐約美國自然歷史博物館工作的瑞士古生物學家Tschopp說，“在那段時間，許多其他的蜥腳類恐龍的棲息地似乎更小。”

According to Maltese, who was part of the original University of Kansas team in 1998 but is now at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park, Colorado, the rock outcrops that produced this fossil hold many more "fantastic dinosaur skeletons," and the research team hopes to continue their studies on fossils from there.

Maltese原先是1998年堪薩斯大學的考察團隊的一員,但現(xiàn)工作于地處科羅拉多州的落基山恐龍資源中心,這里出土了許多包含了“奇特恐龍骨架”的化石，他的研究團隊希望能夠繼續(xù)研究這里的化石。