Longest dinosaur thigh bone in Europe found in Spain
Palaeontologists in Spain have found the fossiled thigh bone of a dinosaur that is almost two metres in length, the longest such femur ever discovered in Europe, they said Friday.
The Dinopolis Foundation, a dinosaur research institute, said the 1.92-metre (6.3-feet) bone was found earlier this year at a site at Riodeva near Teruel in eastern Spain along with a 1.25-metre (4.1-feet) tibia and 15 vertebrae.
The bone is believed to belong to a giant long-necked dinosaur weighing more than 40 tonnes and measuring 30 metres (98 feet), the Turiasaurus Riodevensis, first discovered in 2004 at the same site, it said in a statement.
The new fossils, in addition to those gathered in 2004, should allow the foundation to construct a skeleton of the animal, which lived some 145 million years ago, Dinopolis said.
The announcement comes two weeks after palaeontologists revealed the discovery in the same region of a new type of dinosaur with a hump that they believe is the forerunner of flesh-eating leviathans which once ruled the planet.
The fossil was uncovered in the Las Hoyas formation in central Spain's Cuenca province, a treasure trove of finds that date to the Lower Cretaceous period of between 120 and 150 million years ago.
(c) 2010 AFP
