Skeleton of 82-foot dinosaur found in man’s backyard in Portugal | world news

The skeleton of an 82-foot dinosaur has been discovered in a man’s backyard in central Portugal.

Paleontologists from Spain and Portugal working at the site in the city of Pombal believe they may be the remains of the largest sauropod dinosaur found in Europe.

Sauropods are herbivorous, four-legged dinosaurs characterized by long necks and tails.

Excavations began when the landowner first noticed bone fragments on his property during construction work in 2017.

Researchers say that over the past few weeks they have been unearthing the vertebrae and ribs of a possible brachiosaurid sauropod, or Brachiosaurus, which would have been about 12m tall and about 25m long.

The Brachiosauridae group consists of large species that lived from the Upper Jurassic to the Lower Cretaceous about 160 to 100 million years ago.

“It’s not common to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position that retains their original anatomical position,” said Elisabete Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon.

“This type of preservation is relatively uncommon in the fossil record of dinosaurs, particularly sauropods, from the Upper Portuguese Jurassic.”