Spain: Discovery of dinosaur bones – new species

They were huge and lived 122 million years ago: paleontologists have now found dinosaur bones in Spain belonging to a previously unknown species.

Long-necked dinosaurs inhabited the Earth for several million years. These massive herbivorous sauropods could reach heights of up to 20 metres. The heaviest type weighed around 80 tonnes, the equivalent of around 60 mid-range cars.

The sauropod, Europasaurus, a dwarf version of the long-necked Brachiosaurus, has already been identified in Germany. Paleontologists from the University of Lisbon have now discovered a new species of dinosaur in Spain.

Because the bones discovered by researcher Pedro Mocho and his team near the town of Morella were unusually large, they called them sauropods. Garombatitan morilensis. This means something like “Titan of Garumba near Morella” (Garumba is a mountain range north of Valencia, editor’s note).

Scientists found the fossilized remains of four dinosaurs, estimated to be 122 million years old. One of them showed interesting features.

“One of the individuals found is notable for its size, with vertebrae more than a meter wide and a femur that can be up to two meters long,” Mucho says in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Researchers estimate that its long neck was about ten meters long and it would have had to eat between 30 and 40 kilograms of food per day.

They also found two of the animal’s exceptionally well-preserved feet. Both were complete and still in their original configuration.

Garombatitan morilensis It shared its Early Cretaceous habitat with other dinosaurs, as bones discovered in the area show. These included duck-billed dinosaurs Moreladon Beltrani And the predatory Spinosaurus Protitis sincturensis.