Its name is Abditosaurus kuehnei and it is a new species of titanosaur dinosaur described in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution from the remains excavated at the Orcau-1 site south of the Pyrenees.
The new herbivorous dinosaur, 70.5 million years old , would have measured about 18 meters in length, weighed about 14 tons and would have inhabited the Pyrenees during the Upper Cretaceous.
Researchers from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Institute of Paleontology (ICP), the Conca Dellà Museum (MCD), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) and the NOVA University of Lisbon (UNL) described This new specimen is based on the remains excavated at the Orcau-1 site, in Pallars Jussà.
Estimated length: 17.5 meters
It is, without a doubt, the most complete semi-articulated skeleton of this group of herbivorous dinosaurs found so far in Europe. And its size is one of the factors that most surprises researchers.
“The titanosaurs of the Late Cretaceous of Europe are usually small or medium in size due to their evolution in insular conditions” , explains Bernat Vila, ICP paleontologist and leader of the work. “It is a recurring phenomenon in the history of life on Earth, we have several examples worldwide in the fossil record of this evolutionary trend. That is why we were amazed by the large dimensions of this specimen.”
How are the remains that have been found?
It is unusual to find specimens as complete as this one . Researchers have unearthed 53 skeletal elements of Abditosaurus kuehnei : various vertebrae and ribs of the trunk, and bones of the limbs and the pelvic and shoulder girdles, but what most caught their attention was a semi-articulated fragment of the neck made up of 12 cervical vertebrae.
“We were very lucky, it is rare to find such complete specimens in the Pyrenees due to its conflicting geological history,” explains Àngel Galobart, ICP researcher and director of the Conca Dellà Museum (Isona, Catalonia).
This finding brings a new perspective to the phylogenetic and paleobiogeographical puzzle of sauropods in the last 15 million years before their extinction.
“During the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, Iberia was the connecting point between Eurasia, Africa and North America. Studying how Abditosaurus is related to the fauna of these continents helps us understand when there were connections between them and when they were isolated”, explains Miguel Moreno, researcher at the Museu de Lurinhã and head of the paleobiogeographic study.
The paleontological sites of the Catalan Pyrenees have provided exceptional dinosaur fossils over the last century , such as the non-avian dinosaurs, which lived in Europe just before the mass extinction event that took place 66 million years ago and which wiped out three quarters of the species of plants and animals of our planet.
Reference: Bernat Vila, Albert Sellés, Miguel Moreno-Azanza, Novella L. Razzolini, Alejandro Gil-Delgado, José Ignacio Canudo, Àngel Galobart. A titanosaurian sauropod with Gondwanan affinities in the latest Cretaceous of Europe. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2022; DOI: 10.1038 / s41559-021-01651-5
