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Skeleton of Huge Dinosaur Unearthed in Portugal

 

dinosaur skeleton Portugal
Skeleton of Huge Dinosaur Unearthed in Portugal. Credit: Instituto Dom Luiz (Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal)

Possibly the largest dinosaur skeleton ever discovered in Europe has been unearthed in Portugal, according to researchers from the University of Lisbon.

The university’s Faculty of Sciences department reported that earlier this month, Spanish and Portuguese paleontologists worked on the site to discover what they believe to be a dinosaur that was around twenty-five meters (eighty-two feet) long and lived approximately 145 million years ago.

Elisabete Malafaia, a paleontologist at Lisbon University‘s Faculty of Sciences, spoke with the AFP news agency on Monday and said “it’s one of the biggest specimens discovered in Europe, perhaps in the world.”

Malafaia adds that it is “relatively rare” for vertebrae and ribs to have been discovered in the same spot and the same alignment as they would have been in a dinosaur‘s anatomy.

During construction in the city of Pombal in central Portugal, a property owner came upon fossilized pieces of the dinosaur in 2017.

Skeleton belongs to a sauropod

According to researchers, the skeleton belongs to a sauropod, a type of four-legged, herbivorous dinosaur species distinguished by a long neck and tail.

In the coming months, researchers may carry out additional excavations at the site and in the neighborhood.

This is not the first recent fossilized dinosaur discovery in Europe. In June, it was reported that the remains of a spinosaurid, a bipedal predatory dinosaur with a crocodile-like visage, had been found on the Isle of Wight, an island to the south of England.

Elsewhere in the world, a new species of carnivorous dinosaur which was eleven meters (thirty-six feet) long with arms similar to the Tyrannosaurus Rex was uncovered in northern Patagonia, Argentina, scientists announced last month.

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