Absolutely massive dinosaur footprint discovered on beach in England

A massive dinosaur footprint of the Iguanodon species, which dates back over 100 million years, has been found on a beach in England, news agency SWNS reported.Paleontologist Joe Thompson, a fossil guide with Wight Coast Fossils who unearthed the print, told Fox News Digital that he made the discovery on the Isle of Wight as he set out for the beach with the intention of finding some fossils.“The geology is perfect for it,” he said in an on-camera interview.Thompson had been walking for an hour or two when he came across a large purple object in the clay.“It turned out it was an absolutely huge Iguanodon footprint,” he said.Iguanodon fossils are quite common all over the world, according to Thompson.Specimens have even been found in some U.S.

states, including Utah and Colorado. The Isle of Wight and the U.K.as a whole are exceptionally rich areas for fossil hunting, Thompson said.Some of the most famous dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period include the three-horned Triceratops and the giant Patagotitan — but those won’t be found on the Isle of Wight, he noted.Instead, people are likely to find remnants of animals like the Iguanodon, which left the giant footprint that Thompson discovered last week.“They’re just amazing beasts,” he said of the dinosaurs, which could grow as large as 32 to 36 feet long.

“They walked around in huge groups eating vegetation — they were herbivores.”The most dazzling aspect of the discovery lies in its size, according to Thompson.“This footprint was absolutely massive — just under a meter [roughly 3 feet] long.So a pretty huge Iguanodon, a lot bigger than almost every other Iguanodon footprint found on that section of the coast,” he said.“It’s possible it could be a species of Iguanodon we don’t know about yet, because it is a lot bigger than the other footprints found in the slightly older rocks on the Isle of Wight.”“We’re not really going to know until we find fossils from those same...