An iconic dinosaur once thought to be exclusive to North America has been identified in Europe for the first time.
The fossils come from the La Tejería site in El Castellar, in the Spanish province of Teruel. Paleontologists uncovered 14 tail vertebrae, along with several bones located beneath it. Their preservation made it possible to examine their shape and distinctive features in detail. The animal lived around 150 million years ago, toward the end of the Jurassic.
Reconstruction of a diplodocus.
Creative Vix · Pexels
To understand the importance of this discovery, we need to look at Diplodocus itself. This large herbivorous dinosaur walked on four legs and had a very long neck, a small head and an enormous tail. The Spanish individual would have reached around 25 metres in length. Until now, all fossils confidently attributed to this genus came from the western United States.
The researchers compared several details of its vertebrae and other tail bones with those of previously known specimens. Different analyses of its relationships produced the same result: the Spanish remains do indeed belong to the genus Diplodocus. They appear to be particularly close to the species Diplodocus hallorum, although they cannot be assigned with certainty to a specific species.
This identification mainly changes the known map of these dinosaurs. 150 million years ago, North America and Europe were already separated, but the forming Atlantic Ocean was far narrower than it is today. Temporary drops in sea level may have revealed land bridges or chains of islands between the two regions.
In practical terms, animal populations could have taken advantage of these periods to gradually move from one continent to the other. The presence of a Diplodocus in Spain therefore provides new evidence of faunal exchanges between North America and Europe at the end of the Jurassic. It adds to other similarities already observed between dinosaurs on either side of the ancient Atlantic.
The Spanish site also provides information about the landscapes of that era. The Teruel region has yielded remains of many dinosaurs, including other large herbivores, predators and armored dinosaurs. The Diplodocus discovered at El Castellar therefore shared its environment with a highly diverse fauna, in a region that was then close to the coast.
One question remains unanswered: the available bones do not yet make it possible to determine which species of Diplodocus lived in Europe. New fossils, particularly a more complete skeleton, could establish whether it was a species already known from North America or a form unique to Europe. The bones discovered are now on display at the Dinópolis Aragonese Museum of Paleontology in Teruel.