- News. Scientists make new revelations about the biblical burial place of Jesus Christ
- Health. The risks of allergies according to age group and how they affect the human body over the years
A new dinosaur has entered the scene and threatens to change the entire evolutionary map of Europe, as it shows that there is greater diversity than previously thought during the Jurassic.
This is the reflection of the UNED Group of Evolutionary Biology, published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology. The researchers have discovered a new herbivore of enormous size: a new iguanodontian. This would be one of the largest bipedal herbivores of the Late Jurassic in the entire Iberian Peninsula.
"It was a heavyweight. When we estimated its body size and mass, we found that this new dinosaur was significantly bulkier than other species such as Draconyx or Eousdryosaurus," said Fernando Escaso, professor and researcher at the UNED and co-author of the study with Filippo Maria Rotatori, from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal), in statements reported by Europa Press.
A nameless find... yet
Filippo Maria Rotatori explained that at the moment they cannot name this species due to the difficulties they have had in their research. "Unfortunately, due to the little material recovered, we still cannot formally assign a scientific name to this species," he said. "We believed that the diversity of this group of dinosaurs was already well documented in the Upper Jurassic of Portugal. This discovery shows that there is still much to learn and that exciting discoveries may still occur in the near future," he commented.
The study, carried out after analyzing the fossils deposited in the Sociedade de Historia Natural de Torres Vedras, maintains that this new dinosaur does not fit any known species, although its authors point out in the text that they cannot assign it a new one because they do not have "a solid diagnosis". The researchers have determined that this type of herbivore was common in Portugal. The Lusitanian Basin is thus reinforced as an important scenario for paleontologists, who are excited about this discovery.