The remains are believed to belong to a sauropod dinosaur.
The remains of what could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Europe have been discovered in a man’s back garden in Portugal.
Seconds BBC, the skeleton was discovered in the central city of Pombal in 2017, when a man started building his house and noticed fragments of fossilized bone. Spanish and Portuguese paleontologists excavated the dinosaur in August this year. They believe the fossilized skeleton is from a sauropod, which were fourlegged herbivorous creatures that had long necks and tails.
Sauropods were the largest dinosaurs of all and the largest land animals that ever lived. Experts reported that they lived during the Upper Jurassic period which was about 150 million years ago.
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Paleontologists unearthed parts of the dinosaur’s spine and ribs that suggest the huge reptile was about 12 meters (39 feet) tall and 25 meters (82 feet) long.
Elisabete Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, said Phys.org“It is not usual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, maintaining their original anatomical position.”
“This mode of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, particularly sauropods, from the Portuguese Upper Jurassic,” he added.
Because of the natural position in which the skeleton was found, researchers working on the dig are hopeful that there will be more to discover.
The skeleton is being studied by an international research team.
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Meanwhile, this comes after US researchers found dinosaur footprints from 113 million years ago. After a drought in Texas dried up a river running through Dinosaur Valley State Park, the tracks of the giant reptiles were exposed.