It all started in 2017, when a homeowner in Pombal, Portugal, discovered fragments of fossilized bones in his backyard. He then contacted a research team, which launched an initial excavation to investigate the remains.
Now, 5 years later, paleontologists from Spain and Portugal have unearthed what they believe may well be the remains of the largest sauropod dinosaur to ever be found in Europe — and perhaps in the world, they explained in a statement.
Importantly, the team has already found the vertebrae and ribs of a possible brachiosaurid sauropod, or brachiosaurus. According to the paleontologists, this particular dinosaur would have been 39 feet tall and 82 feet long. For perspective, its ribs are each around 10 feet long.
It isn’t just the size of the remains that are noteworthy. The researchers also believe they found the remains in the position the dinosaur died in.
“It is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining their original anatomical position,” Dr. Elisabete Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Ciências ULisboa), Portugal, said. “This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, in particular sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.”
Dr. Malafaia added that “This kind of preservation is relatively rare for large-sized dinosaurs from the Portuguese fossil record and indicates particular and unusual environmental and taphonomic features,” according to CBS News.
The work is being carried out by researchers from Instituto Dom Luiz at Ciências ULisboa (Portugal), the Evolutionary Biology Group at UNED-Madrid (Spain), and the Faculty of Fine Arts at Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), and had the support of the Pombal City Council.
What You Need To Know About Sauropods
Sauropods, a family of plant-eating, four-legged dinosaurs that had very long necks and tails, roamed Earth 160 to 100 million years ago, according to the American Museum of Natural History. Their fossilized remains have been found on every continent.
Sauropods also had markedly developed forelimbs, meaning their front legs were longer than their hind legs. Those legs, along with their long necks, allowed the dinosaurs to eat the leaves of tall trees.
Other types of sauropods include brontosaurus and diplodocus.
Are There More Fossilized Remains?
Interestingly, the region of Pombal “has an important fossil record of Late Jurassic vertebrates,” Dr. Malafaia explains. “In the last decades, this has provided the discovery of abundant materials very significant for the knowledge of the continental faunas that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula at about 145 million years ago.”
What’s more, due to the way the recently discovered dinosaur’s fossils were preserved, the researchers believe other parts of its skeleton will also be found nearby. Indeed, Dr. Malafaia said the research team plans to return to the excavation site next year.
For more about dinosaurs, be sure to also read
