Gynamus Jurassic Fossil in Portugal could be the biggest dinosaur ever discovered in Europe
The dinosaur remains already discovered in Europe were recently the largest discovered in Portugal. The millions of scientists so far have excavated a colossal ribcage of a necked sauropod, possibly a brachiosaurid, that lived about 150 million years ago at the end of the Jurassic period (201.3 to 145 million years ago). Although the research team has yet to identify the species, the bones are already breaking through the discs.
Paleontologists began working on the site in 2017, when a local landowner in Pombal, Portugal, spotted a few pieces of fossilized bone sticking out of his backyard. He alerted as local authorities, who notified local investigators.
“At that time, we found poorly preserved vertebrae and parts of ribs,” Francisco Ortega, a paleontologist at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid and a key member of the excavation team, told LiveScience via email. Since then, researchers have excavated an unusually intact rib cage, allowing them to estimate the dinosaur’s size.
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By all accounts, it’s huge. The team found that the dinosaur measured about 44 tonnes (44 tons) of measurements – more than an adult humpback animal – was 12 meters tall and spanned 25 meters from nose to tip of tail. .
So far, the skeletal structure is consistent with the brachiosaurids, a group of sauropod dinosaurs that lived in the late and early Jurassic period. Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago) and are famous for their long pool Noodle necks and high forearms. These giants grazed leaves from the forest canopy. Among known brachiosaurids, the most likely candidate for the newly discovered giant Lusoditon atalaiensisIt roamed the Iberian Peninsula 152 million years ago.
“It is believed that much can be present of a little known of this sauro”, “what can be known of this sauro”.
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However, the researchers cautioned that it is still too early to refer to the dinosaur as a brachiosaurid, and identifying a species can be tricky even after the excavation is complete.
“This group of dinosaurs is very much found by some finds and is rare in the upper part. [Late] Europe’s Jurassic,” Ortega said. Furthermore, the size fossils of the newly discovered fossil indicate that this individual dinosaur was larger than any individual of L. attalensis found today (although the new specimens of the species may represent even an unusually large individual of the species). , it was simply a may become a new species.
Once the excavation of the fossil is completed, the bones will be prepared in Pombal with the support of the Municipality of Pombal. Ortega, once preserved, accredited and assembled, the remade will have “enormous museological potential”.
Originally published in Live Science.