A Giant European Dinosaur and a New Sauropod Clade Rafael Royo-Torres,* Alberto Cobos, Luis Alcalá
Fossils of a giant sauropod dinosaur, Turiasaurus riodevensis, have been recovered from terrestrial deposits of the Villar del Arzobispo Formation (Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary) of Riodeva (Teruel Province, Spain). Its humerus length (1790 millimeters) and estimated mass (40 to 48 metric tons) indicate that it may have been the most massive terrestrial animal in Europe and one of the largest in the world. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that the fossil represents a member of a hitherto unrecognized group of primitive European eusauropods that evolved in the Jurassic.
Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis. Avenida de Sagunto, E-44002 Teruel, Spain.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
royo@dinopolis.com Source: Science 22 December 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5807, pp. 1925 - 1927
DOI: 10.1126/science.1132885
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