Calling all Jurassic Park lovers! Scientists are amazed after what might be the “largest dinosaur ever found” was discovered in Portugal in early August.
According to an article on Reuters, fragments from the skeleton were first discovered all the way back in 2017, when a property owner in the city of Pombal, Portugal, discovered several pieces of fossilized fragments while doing some construction work.
EurekAlert writes that the property owner contacted an international research team after he made the discovery and that they carried out the first excavation campaign that year.
However, it wasn’t until this month when the paleontologists started unearthing what they believe to be “the largest sauropod dinosaur to be found in Europe.”
Some researchers from the University of Lisbon estimate the sauropod to have been a whopping 82 feet long and lived approximately 145 million years ago.
Encyclopedia Brittanica writes that the sauropod is “marked by large size, a long neck and tail, a four-legged stance, and a herbivorous diet.” They were the “largest of all dinosaurs and the largest land animals that ever lived.” Fascinating!
To get a better picture of what this dinosaur looked like, think of the famous Brachiosaurus or Brachiosaurus altithorax, which falls under the sauropod family.
Parts of the axial skeleton have been collected from the discovery site. This includes the dinosaur’s ribs and vertebrae.
“It is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining their original anatomical position,” Elisabete Malafaia, Postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, told EurekAlert.
galitskaya – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purpose only, not the actual person
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“This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, in particular sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.”
EurekAlert writes that the preservation process has indicated the “possible presence of other parts of the skeleton of this individual.” The researchers will know more as they continue to carry out their excavation campaigns.
The region of Pombal actually has “an important fossil record of Late Jurassic vertebrate,” says Elisabete Malafaia.
This will provide lots of helpful knowledge on this dinosaur and where it came from as the process continues.
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