Portugese Man May Have Unearthed Europe's Largest Dinosaur in His Backyard

When a Portuguese man started digging for building work on his house in 2017, he found the fossilized bones for the first time, according to the BBC. Yet, the recent excavations on the same site in the early weeks of August 2022 by Portuguese and Spanish paleontologists may have uncovered the remains of the largest sauropod dinosaur yet discovered in Europe.

Dinosaur Discovery in Europe

In a backyard in Pombal City, Portugal, the dinosaur's remains were discovered. The fossils were thought to belong to a sauropod dinosaur that was around 25 meters long and 12 meters high.

Elisabete Malafaia, Postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, said that it is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining their original anatomical position. She said that the mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, in particular sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.

A significant number of axial skeleton parts, including vertebrae and ribs of a potential brachiosaurid sauropod dinosaur, have so far been excavated from the site.

Brachiosaurid Sauropod Dinosaur

A sauropod, or brachiosaur, was a type of dinosaur that inhabited the Earth between the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods, or between 160 million and 66 million years ago. These enormous plant-eating dinosaurs were the biggest of all terrestrial animals and could reach lengths of 82 feet and 39 feet. They are known for their long necks and tails and the presence of noticeably developed forelimbs.

According to Phys.org, this group of sauropods includes some of the most famous dinosaur species, including Brachiosaurus altithorax, Giraffatitan brancai, and the Portuguese Late Jurassic species Lusotitan atalaiensis, discovered in Portugal's western area.

Future excavation expeditions into the deposit will test this theory in light of the fossils' preservation qualities and disposition, which point to the potential presence of the dinosaur's other skeletal components.

Malafaia said studies conducted at the Monte Agudo paleontological locality support the existence of a significant fossil record of Late Jurassic vertebrates in the Pombal area. Over the past few decades, these discoveries have greatly advanced our understanding of the continental fauna that lived on the Iberian Peninsula 145 million years ago.

Sauropod Discovery

According to the National History Museum, Cetiosaurus and Cetiosauriscus are the two most complete sauropod skeletons yet discovered in the UK. Although Cetiosaurus is thought to have been the largest, both were almost as long as two double-decker buses.

Australian fossils were also discovered in July 2022 despite the country's unusual terrain, which makes the discovery of dinosaurs rare. Yet the dig site has thus far yielded 17 sauropod teeth.

The traces that the researchers discovered on the teeth suggested that regular eating had worn them down. The marks also revealed information about the kinds of plants the dinosaur had been eating, including flowering plants, conifers, gingkos, and maybe horsetails, which are no longer found in Australia.

Researchers point out that because sauropods did not chew their food, they lacked molars. Their teeth were all slightly offset, semi-conical, curved, and had pointy ends. The dinosaurs would have utilized them, together with their jaw and tongue, to grasp leaves and snip them into their mouths, which they would then ingest whole without any prior processing. Thus, the entire process would have been carried out by the stomach, which may take two weeks.

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