A new species of dinosaur that roamed the Earth around 75 million years ago has been uncovered in a huge finding.
Researchers have discovered a new titanosaur, which is a sauropod dinosaur characterized by having long necks.
The species lived during the Cretaceous period and its skeleton was found in Cuenca, Spain, where archeologists unearthed cervical, dorsal, and caudal vertebrae, part of the pelvic girdles, and elements of the limbs.
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The newly discovered dinosaur has been called Qunkasaura pintiquiniestra, which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue but has an interesting meaning behind it.
The name is made up of different geographical and cultural references close to the Lo Hueco site. ‘Qunka’ refers to the oldest etymology in the area of Cuenca and Fuentes.
‘Saura’ is a reference to the Latin feminine saurus, meaning lizard, and is also a nod to painter Antonio Saura, whereas ‘pintiquiniestra’ comes from the giant ‘Queen Pintiquiniestra’, one of the characters in a novel, Don Quixote.
The study was conducted by the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Lisbon and part of the newly found skeleton is already on display at the Museum of Paleontology of Castilla-La Mancha.
The study was led by paleontologist Pedro Mocho, who said: “The study of this specimen allowed us to identify for the first time the presence of two distinct lineages of saltasauroids in the same fossil locality. One of these groups, called Lirainosaurinae, is relatively known in the Iberian region and is characterized by small and medium-sized species, which evolved in an island ecosystem.
“In other words, Europe was a huge archipelago made up of several islands during the Late Cretaceous. However, Qunkasaura belongs to another group of sauropods, represented in the Iberian Peninsula by medium-large species 73 million years ago.
“This suggests to us that this lineage arrived in the Iberian Peninsula much later than other groups of dinosaurs.”
The dinosaur is now one of the most complete sauropod skeletons that has been found in Europe.
Experts have been able to study the bones in order to gain more insight into a group of dinosaurs that previously not much had been understood about.
Researchers believe that Lo Hueco is the only site where the Qunkasaura dinosaur co-existed with Lirainosaurinae dinosaurs.
Mocho added: “The Lo Hueco deposit also preserves several skeletons of sauropod dinosaurs to be determined, which may correspond to new species and which will help us understand how these animals evolved.”