A dinosaur dating back 70.5 million years ago was recently unearthed. The gigantic creature had a long neck and twice the size of a London bus.
The fossilized remains of the new dinosaur species were first discovered in Orcau, a site located in Catalonia, Spain. Experts named the massive creature Abditosaurus kuehnei.
Largest Titanosaur Discovered in Spain
NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 14: A replica of one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered is unveiled at the American Museum of Natural History on January 14, 2016 in New York City. The replica of the "Titanosaur" weighs about 70 tons, is 17 feet tall and stretches to nearly 122 feet long. The dinosaur belongs to the titanosaur family and was discovered by Paleontologists in the Patagonian Desert of Argentina in 2014 and lived about 100 to 95 million years ago. The exhibit at the museum features bones, fossils and a fibreglass replica of the creature.
The dinosaur roamed was double the size of a typical double-decker bus or about 17.5 meters in length. Abditosaurus kuehnei had a mass of about 14,000 kilograms, which equates to 28 large grand pianos.
Due to its long neck, the Abditosaurus kuehnei reaches a maximum height of 4 meters. The feature is beneficial for gathering food on tall trees.
The authors of the study said that the 70.5-million-year-old fossil of the dinosaur belongs in the larger group of herbivores called titanosaurs, which are commonly found in many regions of Europe.
Abditosaurus kuehnei was the largest dinosaur ever to be excavated from the ancient region now bordering southern France and Iberia.
According to a report by DailyMail, the experts were "astonished and surprised" upon discovering the new dinosaur, especially since the Abditosaurus kuehnei is considerably the largest and first titanosaur extracted from the region.
Titanosaurs found in Europe's Upper Cretaceous regions have average body sizes due to the insular conditions, according to Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona expert and author of the study, Bernat Vila.
Europe's geological state during the Upper Cretaceous period, between 83 to 66 million years ago, was a massive archipelago that included several pieces of smaller islands.
These islands housed several smaller species compared to their cousins that existed in larger territories due to limited food supplies.
Vila explained that the geological phenomenon and evolutionary trend it induced on the early years of Earth reflected in the fossils recently discovered. It was why their team was surprised to find the unusual, larger type of titanosaur in the region.
The global decrease of sea levels is one of the main factors that probably helped the Abditosaurus kuehnei travel across Europe and Africa, and reside in the Iber-Armorican island.
Abditosaurus kuehnei's Fossils
The study collected 53 fragments of the Abditosaurus kuehnei fossil throughout the decades of investigation.
The titanosaur remains unearthed and examined by the authors included parts such as ribs, limbs, pelvic bones, spine, teeth and 12 cervical vertebrae, which were only a fragment of its neck.
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont Barcelona and Museu de la Conca Dellà expert Angel Galobart, who also authored the study, explained that their team was lucky to encounter such unusual specimen in the Pyrenees, considering the challenges in the region's geologic history.
Abditosaurus kuehnei's name was inspired by Walter Kuhne, a German paleontologist that discovered the dinosaur's first fossil fragments in 1954. Unfortunately, the project was never brought back again until today due to the destruction of the site in 1986.
The "forgotten reptile" aligns with the sauropods, a planet-eating dinosaur group including the popular Diplodocus and Brontosaurus.
The study titled "A titanosaurian sauropod with Gondwanan affinities in the latest Cretaceous of Europe" was published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
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