An international team of archaeologists recently made an incredible discovery.
While carrying out an excavation on the site of Orcau-1, in the Spanish Pyrenees, they discovered 53 bones belonging to the skeleton of an
Abditosaurus kuehnei.
This is a new species of giant dinosaur that had never been described until now, reports
France 3 Occitanie on
Saturday
.
These bones also constitute the most complete semi-articulated skeleton of a titanosaur ever discovered in Europe.
According to the first information presented Monday in the journal
Nature Ecology & Evolution
, "the forgotten lizard", as it was called, was 18 meters long and weighed 14 tons.
This makes him the largest dinosaur ever found in southern Europe.
New species of sauropod dinosaur in the Spanish Pyrenees!
Described 60 years after its discovery, Abditosaurus kuehnei (the forgotten lizard of Kühne, its discoverer in 1954) lived 70.5 million years ago and measured ~ 17m long and weighed 14 tons.
https://t.co/lSWR8oTPTL pic.twitter.com/cTxwPJ7SGe
— Vincent Reneleau 🦕 (@VincentReneleau) February 8, 2022
Dimensions that question
The presence of a herbivore of these dimensions in this location has thus raised many questions among researchers.
"The titanosaurs usually found in the Upper Cretaceous of Europe tend to be small or medium-sized because they evolved in island conditions," says Bernat Vila, paleontologist and lead author of the paper published in
Nature
. .
European dinosaurs would thus be characterized by a smaller size.
According to scientists, the dinosaur found would therefore belong to a group originating in Africa or South America.
This would imply the existence of a migration between Europe and the Gondwana supercontinent from which gradually emerged Africa, South America, Antarctica, Australia, India and the Arabian Peninsula.
The specimen could thus have taken advantage of a global drop in the level of the oceans to move.
World
Turkey: Searched for 200 years, an ancient city discovered by an amateur archaeologist
Culture
Archaeology: How excavations enrich our shared history
Spain
Archeology
Science
Pyrenees
Dinosaur
0 comment
0 share
Share on Messenger
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Flipboard
Share on Pinterest
Share on Linkedin
Send by Mail
To safeguard
A fault ?
To print