Discover a dinosaur cage in the backyard of Portugal

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Home renovations can reveal all kinds of unexpected elements, but one Portuguese property owner unearthed a treasure hidden on another scale when he stumbled upon what could be Europe’s largest. dinosaur remains.

In early August, a team of Portuguese and Spanish researchers exhumed parts of what they believe to be a fossilized brachiosauride sauropod skeleton in Monte Agudo, Pombal, Portugal, according to a press release last week.

Sauropods – which includes the largest dinosaurs in the world They were herbivorous dinosaurs that were recognizable by their long necks and tails. Based on the unearthed remains, researchers estimate that the dinosaur was about 12 meters (39 feet) high and 25 meters (82 feet) long.

The team has so far discovered important parts of the skeleton, including the vertebrae and ribs.

“It is not unusual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, while maintaining their original anatomical position,” Elisabeth Malavia, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Science, said in the statement.

“This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, particularly sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.”

This discovery is part of an ongoing project that began in 2017.

That year, while carrying out construction work on the property, the owner noticed several fossilized bone fragments in his backyard, according to the statement.

He contacted the research team, which began the first excavations that year.

Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who was not involved in the project, called the project “Jobs Shocked – a dinosaur thorax coming out of someone’s garden.”

“(It appears) that you’re likely to find them anywhere there are rocks of the right age and the right type to preserve Jurassic bones, whether it’s in the Badlands or someone’s backyard,” he told CNN, adding that finding dinosaur remains requires opportunity and circumstances. In dry, badlands terrain, wind and water erosion exposes rocks and the terrain is often a hotspot for fossils.

Dinosaurs of the group Brachiosauridae, to which the skeleton is believed to belong, It lived between the Upper Jurassic and the Lower Cretaceous periods about 160 to 100 million years ago, the press release added.

This is not the first fossilized discovery of dinosaurs in Europe recently. In June, it was reported that Spinoride residue A two-legged predatory dinosaur with a crocodile-like appearance was found on the Isle of Wight, an island in southern England.

somewhere else in the world, A new type of carnivorous dinosaur Last month, scientists announced the discovery of Rex-like arms 11 meters (36 feet) long in northern Patagonia, Argentina.

The skeleton found in Pombal has been preserved He indicates that more of them could be discovered, with more excavations planned at the site.