Source/ Instituto Dom Luiz/Faculty of Sciences of the University of LisbonUpon discovery, the man immediately contacted a local excavation team. They started unearthing the skeleton. As with every archaeological excavation, the team cannot know the full magnitude of the project, but it has been steadily ongoing since 2017. Recently, a breakthrough in the unearthing process took place when a team of Portuguese and Spanish paleontologists finished the discovery and identification of the dinosaur's vertebrae and partial rib cage.
The dinosaur found at the site is an exceptionally preserved sauropod - an umbrella term used to describe certain types of herbivores that surpassed any other species that walked the earth, both in size and weight. They lived approximately 160-100 million years ago and had an unusually long neck and tail, as illustrated in the image below:
Source/ Instituto Dom Luiz/Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon
Source/ Instituto Dom Luiz/Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon
