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The prints have been described as the biggest ever seen

The largest dinosaur footprints ever found have been unearthed by amateur fossil hunters in France.

Measuring up to 1.5m in diameter, the prints are thought to have been made by a sauropod-type dino like the diplodocus, which could have weighed as much as 40 tonnes.

The prints were discovered in the Jura by two enthusiasts in April, but have only recently been authenticated by palaeontologists from France's National Center for Scientific Research and the University of Lyon.

In a statement, the centre said that according to the researchers' initial work, the tracks "are the biggest ever seen".

Professor Pierre Hantzpergue, a palaeontologist at the university, told Reuters: "It's an exceptional discovery and unique in the world by virtue of the size of the prints, as well as by the length of the trail."

Sauropods are thought to have been among the largest animals ever to have walked the earth.

They appeared in the Late Triassic period and began to diversify in the Middle Jurassic, about 180 million years ago.

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