Biggest In Europe, Researchers Find The Remaining Sauropod Dinosaur Fossils Aged 150 Million Years

The discovery of sauropod fossils in Portugal. (Source: Institudo Dom Luiz/Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon Portugal)

JAKARTA - The largest known dinosaur remains in Europe, were found in a back garden in Portugal.

Excavation work began in the park located in the City of Pombal in 2017, when property owners looked at fossil fractures and contacted researchers from the University of Lisbon.

Earlier this month, Spanish and Portuguese paleontologists working on the site, began digging up the spines and ribs of what they considered a sauropod brachiosaurid.

Sauropods are the largest dinosaurs and largest land animals ever to live.

"It is not uncommon to find all animal ribs like this, especially in this position, maintaining their natural anatomy position," Elisabeth Malafaia, a post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, told Phys.org.

The sauropod group, which includes brontosaurus and diplodocus, are herbivora, long-necked and walking on four legs.

The size of the bones found in the park showed the dinosaur was 12 meters high and 25 meters long.

Due to the natural position of the skeleton found, the researchers hope that further excavations can reveal more parts of the same dinosaur.

The skeleton was found in the Jurassic Atas sediment rock, showing its age at around 150 million years.

"(This discovery) confirms that the Pombal region has an important fossil record of Jurassic End vertebrata, which in the last decade has provided a very significant discovery of abundant materials for the knowledge of continental fauna that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula around 145m last year," added Malafaia.