A man from Pombal, in western Portugal, discovered the first bones in 2017. He contacted researchers from the University of Lisbon, who started excavations for the rest of the skeleton. A team of Spanish and Portuguese paleontologists were eventually able to uncover much of the 25-meter-long dinosaur, and the skeleton turned out to be in exceptionally good condition. “It’s unusual to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in their original anatomical position,” said Elisabete Malafaia, one of the researchers at the University of Lisbon.
Upon examination, the skeleton was found to be from a brachiosaurus, a sauropod dinosaur estimated to have lived 160 to 100 million years ago. The sauropods were herbivores with four legs and a long neck and tail. A brachiosaurus has longer front legs and shorter hind legs. The specimen found in the Portuguese backyard was estimated to have been 25 meters long and 12 meters high, and may be the largest sauropod skeleton ever found in Europe.
The scientists now suspect that parts of the skeleton can still be found in the soil, and will carry out further excavations in the future. “The research at the site confirms that the Pombal region has an important fossil record of vertebrates from the late Jurassic,” Malafaida said.