Aragon University Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

A team from the Teruel-Dinópolis Joint Palaeontological Foundation has discovered, at the La Tejería site in El Castellar (Teruel), the remains of what could be the first diplodocus found outside North America. The research, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology, describes 14 exceptionally well-preserved caudal vertebrae from the tail and several cheurones (tail bones). According to the authors, “osteological comparisons and phylogenetic analyses consistently placed the specimen within the genus Diplodocus”. The specimen, which dates back some 150 million years, provides the first intercontinental evidence for this genus and constitutes one of the most robust pieces of palaeontological evidence for episodes of faunal dispersal and exchange between the two continents across the proto-Atlantic Ocean during the Late Jurassic.