Described a new species of giant herbivorous dinosaur, which lived in the Pyrenees 70 million years ago, of African origin
He is a migrant whose family entered the peninsula taking advantage of the drop in sea levels. Its name: Abditosaurus kuehnei.
It is a herbivorous dinosaur about 18 meters long and about 14 tons in weight, described from the most complete titanosaur skeleton discovered so far in Europe.
Research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution It is directed by specialists from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont and the Conca Dellà Museum, with the collaboration of the University of Zaragoza.
Pyrenees, refuge of the last dinosaurs
The Pyrenees are exceptional in terms of the dinosaur fossil record; are very well represented and include the last species that lived in Europe. They gathered a unique biodiversity at the end of the Cretaceous, just before disappearing around the world 66 million years ago.
The remains of Abditosaurus kuehnei were found at the Orcau-1 site in Pallars Jussà, which is 70.5 million years old. They found a semi-articulated skeleton, the most complete of this group of herbivorous dinosaurs discovered so far in Europe.
Its dimensions – almost 18 meters long and an estimated weight of 14 tons – make it the largest species of dinosaur in the Ibero-Armorian domain, the ancient region that currently includes the Iberian Peninsula and southern France.
One of the aspects that surprised the research team is precisely its size. “The titanosaurs that we usually find in the Upper Cretaceous of Europe tend to be small or medium in size because they evolved in insular conditions”, explains Bernat Vila, ICP paleontologist who signs the article.
During the Late Cretaceous (between 83 and 66 million years ago), Europe was an extensive archipelago made up of dozens of islands. The faunas that evolved there tend to be small or even dwarf forms due to the dietary limitation of living on an island. “It is a recurring phenomenon in the history of life on Earth and we have many examples in the fossil record. That’s why we were surprised by the large dimensions of this specimen”, says Vila.
The remains of this dinosaur consist of several vertebrae and ribs from the trunk and bones of the limbs and the pelvic and scapular girdles, but a semi-articulated fragment of the neck made up of 12 cervical vertebrae, some fused, stands out. “We are rarely lucky enough to find such complete specimens”, explains Àngel Galobart, researcher at the ICP and director of the Conca Dellà Museum (in Isona).
The illustration highlights the fossils found and the size of Abditosaurus kuehnei compared to humans.
The excavation of a huge “mummy”
The excavation of the bottleneck in 2014 was a technical challenge, as a “mummy” – a term used in paleontology to refer to the block of polyurethane foam that protects the fossil inside – had never been extracted from these dimensions in Europe.
The video shows the enormity of the fossil:
The history of the research that led to the description of the new species dates back to 1954, when German paleontologist Walter Kühne excavated its first remains and sent them to the Lucas Mallada Institute in Madrid. The site fell by the wayside until 1986, when some more remains were mined, but a major storm canceled the excavation. The site was again forgotten until in 2012, the ICP research team systematically resumed excavations.
The story of this discovery was collected in the documentary produced by TV3 “THE Europe’s last giant premiered in 2017 and broadcast on Movistar+. ‘Abditosaurus means ‘the forgotten reptile’ and the specific epithet ‘kuehnei’ It is a tribute to its discoverer.
a migratory dinosaur
It belongs to a group of saltasaur titanosaurs from South America and Africa.
The article published in the magazine Nature Ecology and Evolution includes phylogenetic (i.e. relatedness) analyzes of the new species and concludes that Abditosaurus It belongs to a group of saltasaur titanosaurs from South America and Africa, separated from the rest of European dinosaurs that are characterized by a smaller size.
The research team posits that the lineage of Abditosaurus It arrived at the Ibero-Armorian island taking advantage of a global drop in sea level that allowed the reactivation of old migratory routes between Africa and Europe.
“In the same place we found eggshells of dinosaur species that we know lived in Gondwana, the southernmost continent”
“There is other evidence to support the migration hypothesis,” explains Albert Sellés, ICP paleontologist and co-author of the paper. “In the same place we found eggshells of dinosaur species that we know lived in Gondwana, the southernmost continent”, concludes the paleontologist.
The new discovery represents a major breakthrough in understanding the evolution of sauropod dinosaurs in the late Cretaceous and brings new perspective to the phylogenetic and paleobiogeographic puzzle of sauropods in the last 15 million years before their extinction.
“During the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, the Iberian Peninsula was the connecting point between Eurasia, Africa and North America. study how you relate Abditosaurus with the fauna of these continents helps us to understand when they were connected and when they were isolated”, explains Miguel Moreno, researcher at the Museum of Loruinhã and Universidade NOVA de Lisboa who carried out the paleobiogeographic analysis.
The great herbivores of the Cretaceous
Titanosaurs are a group of sauropod dinosaurs that dominated terrestrial ecosystems during the Cretaceous. All were quadrupeds and phytophagous, that is, they fed on plant matter. Its skull was small and pointed, with tiny nail-shaped teeth that were used to pluck vegetation.
They had a stocky body, with forelegs shorter than the hind legs, and a relatively long neck and tail. Some species ―among them many of those found fossilized in the current Pyrenees― had their trunks covered by bony plates called osteoderms. It is believed that these structures can serve as a protective shield or as a calcium reserve.
Han participated in the personal research studio of the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP), the Museo de la Conca Dellà (MCD), the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the Universidad de Zaragoza (UNIZAR) and the NOVA University of Lisbon (ONE L).