New species of dinosaur found in Spain
22 Dec 2015 by Evoluted New Media
A new ‘sail-backed’ dinosaur is reported to have been found by Spanish scientists in Morella, Castellón.
A new ‘sail-backed’ dinosaur is reported to have been found by Spanish scientists in Morella, Castellón.
Scientists found a partial skeleton composed mainly of dorsal and sacral vertebrae as well as pelvic bones. Morelladon beltrani was a bipedal dinosaur, about six meters long and two and a half metres high.
Dr Fernando Escaso, assistant professor at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, said: "We knew the dinosaur fauna from Morella was similar to those of other contemporary European sites. However, this discovery shows an interesting rise of the iguanodontoid diversity in southern Europe around 125 million years ago."
The fossils show tall neural spines on the dorsal vertebrae. This was potentially a ‘sail’ to help the dinosaur regulate its temperature or a storage space to store fat during times when food was scarce.
This discovery lends weight to a large collection of Morelladon baeltrani, along with Iguanodon bernissartensis and Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis being present in Iberian during the late Barremian age, around 125 million years ago.
The findings were published in PLOS ONE.
