In early August, a team of Portuguese and Spanish researchers exhumed parts of what they believe is a fossilized brachiosaurid sauropod skeleton at Monte Agudo, Pombal, Portugal, according to a press release last week.
Sauropods, which included the world’s largest dinosaurs, were herbivorous dinosaurs recognized for their long necks and tails. Based on the remains discovered, researchers estimate that the dinosaur was about 12 meters (39 feet) tall and 25 meters (82 feet) long.
The team has so far discovered important parts of the skeleton, including vertebrae and ribs.
“It is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining its original anatomical position,” said Elisabete Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, in the communicated
“This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, particularly sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic.”
The discovery is part of an ongoing project, which began in 2017.
That year, while work was being done on the property, the owner observed several fossilized bone fragments in his backyard, according to the statement.
He contacted the research team, which began the first dig that year.
Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, who was not involved in the project, called it “gobsmacking: a dinosaur ribcage coming out of someone’s garden.”
“(It shows) you can find them anywhere there’s rock of the right age and the right kind to preserve Jurassic-age bones, whether it’s in the badlands or in somebody’s backyard,” he told CNN , adding that finding dinosaur remains involves opportunity and circumstance. On dry land, erosion by wind and water exposes the rock, and the topography is often a hot spot for fossils.
The dinosaurs of the Brachiosauridae group, to which the skeleton is believed to belong, lived between the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods about 160 to 100 million years ago, the statement added.
This is not the first discovery of fossilized dinosaurs in Europe recently. In June, it was reported that the remains of a spinosaurid — a predatory bipedal dinosaur with a crocodile-like face — had been found on the Isle of Wight, an island in southern England. Elsewhere in the world, a new species of carnivorous dinosaur that was 11 meters (36 feet) long with arms similar to Tyrannosaurus Rex was discovered in northern Patagonia, Argentina, scientists announced last month.
The preservation of the skeleton found at Pombal indicates that more could be discovered, with additional excavation at the planned site.