Bones of What May Be Europe’s Largest Dinosaur Found in Spain
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON —The fossil bones of what may have been Europe’s largest animal ever, a new type of dinosaur, have been discovered in Spain. Discovery of the sauropod, estimated to have weighed between 40 and 48 tons, is reported in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
Named Turiasaurus riodevensis, the animal lived in the Teruel area of what is now Spain in the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago.
The remains were found by a team led by Rafael Royo-Torres of the Joint Paleontology Foundation Teruel-Dinopolis. In the past, such large dinosaurs have primarily been found in Africa and the New World. The claw of the first digit of its pes, or hoof, is the size of an NFL football.
