Paleontologists in Portugal have discovered the fossilized remains of what may be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe.
The remains are believed to belong to a sauropod, a 12 m (39 ft) long, 25 m long herbivorous dinosaur that roamed the Earth about 150 million years ago.
“It’s one of the biggest specimens ever discovered in Europe, maybe in the world,” paleontologist Elisabeth Malafia from the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Sciences told AFP on Monday.
The bones were discovered by Portuguese and Spanish scientists in early August in the garden of a house near Pombal in central Portugal. Among the collected bones, they found the remains of a rib about three meters long, Malafia said.
The fossil fragments were first spotted at the site in 2017, when the owner was excavating his garden to make way for an extension.
He reached scientistss, who found piece of the dinosaur’s skeleton recently and have been looking at it from that point onward. Sauropods have particularly long necks and tails and are among the largest animals to have ever lived.
Fossils discovered at the Monte Agudo site in Pombal are believed to be brachiosards that lived in the late Jurassic period.
The fact that the vertebrae and ribs were found in the same place and position as they would have been in dinosaur anatomy is “relatively rare,” Malafaya said.
The team may conduct further excavations in and around the site in the coming months.
