Agencies-Gaza post
Huge sauropod dinosaur found in Portugal
In early August, Portuguese and Spanish paleontologists excavated in the garden of a house in central Portugal the fossilized bones of a dinosaur that could be the largest of the sauropod or lizard-legged family discovered to date in Europe.
“It is one of the largest known specimens in Europe or even all over the world,” paleontologist Elisabeth Malafaya of the Dom Luiz Institute at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Sciences told AFP.
It explained that the researchers found among the vertebrae and ribs that could be collected, which date back to the Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, the remains of a rib with a length of nearly three meters.
These fossils were first discovered in 2017, when a resident of the Pombal region was digging the ground with an excavator to build an annex on his property.
In early August, a team of researchers excavated the remains of the dinosaur to conduct in-depth studies on these fossils. New excavations may be carried out in the coming months at the site of its discovery as well as in the surrounding area.
Sauropods are herbivorous and four-legged dinosaurs, recognizable by their long neck and tail, and this dinosaur can reach 12 meters in height and 25 meters in length, and is among the largest animals that ever lived on Earth.
It is likely that the fossils discovered near Pombal belonged to an animal of the Brachiosaurus family that lived during the Upper Jurassic period.
