The remains of what could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe have been discovered in a man’s garden in Portugal. According to the BBC, the skeleton was discovered in the central town of Pombal in 2017 when a man started building his house and noticed fragments of fossilized bone. Spanish and Portuguese palaeontologists then excavated the dinosaur in August this year. They believe the fossilized skeleton is that of a sauropod, which were herbivorous, four-legged creatures that had long necks and tails. Sauropods were the largest of all dinosaurs and the largest land animals that ever lived. Experts informed that they lived during the Upper Jurassic period which was about 150 million years ago. Also read | Scientists have discovered an underwater crater that was created when the dinosaurs went extinct Paleontologists have discovered parts of the dinosaur’s spine and ribs that suggest the massive reptile was about 12 meters (39 feet) tall and 25 meters (82 feet) long. Elisabete Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon’s School of Science, told Phys.org, “It is not common to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, preserving their original anatomical position. .” “This mode of preservation is relatively unusual in fossil dinosaurs, particularly sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic,” he added. Because of the physical location in which the skeleton was found, researchers working on the dig hope there is more to it that has yet to be discovered. The skeleton is now being studied by an international research team. Also read | Scientists Discover Over 4,300 Dinosaur Tracks in China: Report Meanwhile, this comes after researchers in the United States found dinosaur tracks dating back 113 million years. After a drought in Texas dried up a river that flows through Dinosaur Valley State Park, traces of the giant reptiles were uncovered.
