A dinosaur rib was found in a backyard in Portugal

In early August, a team of Portuguese and Spanish researchers exhumed what they believed to be a fossilized brachiosaurid sauropod skeleton at Monte Agudo, Pombal, Portugal, according to a news release last week.

Sauropods – includes the largest dinosaurs in the world — were herbivorous dinosaurs known 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 unusual to find all the ribs of an animal in this condition,” said Elisabete Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Sciences.

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

Researchers believe the remains could have been about 39 feet tall and 82 feet long.

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

According to the statement, during construction work on the property that year, the homeowner found several petrified bone fragments in his yard.

He contacted the research team that started the first excavation that year.

Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who was not involved in the project, called it “constipation—a dinosaur rib from someone’s garden.”

“(It goes to show) you can find them anywhere, whether it’s in badlands or someone’s backyard, there’s the right age and the right type of rock to preserve Jurassic bones,” he said, adding that finding dinosaur remains includes: luck and circumstances. In dry rugged terrain, erosion by wind and water exposes rocks, and the topography is often a hot spot for fossils.

The study highlights the importance of the vertebrate fossil record in the Pombal region of Portugal.

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

This is not the first fossilized dinosaur discovery in Europe recently. In June, it was reported that the remains of a spinosaurus A bipedal predatory dinosaur was found on the Isle of Wight in the south of England.

In another part of the world, a new species of carnivorous dinosaur An 11-meter (36-foot) long Tyrannosaurus Rex-like arm has been discovered in the Patagonia region of northern Argentina.

Preservation of the skeleton found in Pombal It suggests that more could be discovered with more excavation at the planned site.