An 82-foot-long fossilized dinosaur skeleton has been found in the back garden of a man in Portugal.
The fossil remains were discovered in the city of Pompar in 2017, when a man noticed part of the dinosaur while doing construction work on his property.
Paleontologists in Portugal and Spain unearthed the dinosaur in August and believe it was a sauropod, a herbivorous quadruped with a long neck and tail.
They lived in the Upper Jurassic period about 150 million years ago.
Elisabote Malafaia, a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, told the Phys.org website: “It is not uncommon to find all the ribs of an animal like this, let alone in this position, in the original anatomical position.”
“This type of preservation is relatively uncommon in the dinosaur fossil record, especially sauropods from the Upper Jurassic period in Portugal.”
The skeleton is 39 feet tall and 82 feet long. An international research team is now studying the remains.
Just a month ago, researchers discovered the footprints of two sauropod dinosaurs from about 100 million years ago in the outdoor courtyard of a restaurant in southwestern China.
