A dinosaur footprint found in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert is among the largest ever discovered, researchers say.

The 106 centimetre-long, 77 centimetre-wide footprint was from a herbivorous dinosaur’s left hind leg, Japan’s Okayama University of Science said in a statement.

The well-preserved fossil is estimated to be 70 to 90 million years old.

A cast of the print was naturally made when the dinosaur’s deep mud tracks filled with sand and silt, which solidified over time like plaster, the university said.

Large dinosaur footprints have previously been found in Morocco and France, but researchers said the Mongolian footprint’s preservation with imprints of claws was “very rare”.

The researchers estimated the dinosaur could have been more than 30 metres long and 20 metres tall.

The discovery was made in August, when the university joined with the Mongolian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Palaeontology and Geology to survey the desert.