In a statement, the higher education institution said that the work involved the collaboration of scientists from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), in Spain, and that the “remarkable discovery represents a significant advance in knowledge about the diversity of dinosaur fauna present in the final part of the Jurassic”.

“It was a surprise,” confessed Filippo Maria Rotatori, from GEOBIOTEC (GeoBiosciences, Geotechnologies and Geoengineering), a research center at Nova FCT and main author of the study.

“We believed that the diversity of this group of dinosaurs was already well documented in the Upper Jurassic of Portugal and this discovery shows that there is still much to learn and that exciting discoveries may still emerge in the near future. Unfortunately, due to the limited material recovered, we cannot yet assign a formal scientific name to this species,” he said, quoted in the statement.

The study allowed the identification of a specimen, SHN.JJS.015, deposited at the Torres Vedras Natural History Society, as a herbivorous dinosaur from the iguanodontian group, which also stands out for its size, with a detailed examination confirming that it “does not correspond to any previously identified species”.

“It was a heavy weight,” highlighted Fernando Escaso, another lead author and professor at UNED.

“When we estimated its size and body mass, we found that this new dinosaur was significantly more heavily built than other iguanodontian species, such as Draconyx or Eousdryosaurus, with which it most likely shared the ecosystem.”

Bruno Camilo, a PhD student at the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon and director of Ci2Paleo of the Natural History Society of Torres Vedras, noted that this is the first time that “different age groups of this type of dinosaur have been found in Portugal, which opens up new possibilities for research”.

“Relatively common”

In addition to the aforementioned specimen, other fossil remains were discovered, including isolated femurs of a smaller size, “which suggests that these dinosaurs were relatively common in Portugal during the Upper Jurassic”, he explained.

The discovery also reinforces the importance of Europe in the evolutionary and migratory history of dinosaurs, with researcher Filippo Bertozzo of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences noting that the animal now known “shows many similarities with other species of iguanodontians found in North America and other parts of Europe.”

“During the Jurassic, the Iberian Peninsula probably played a crucial role in faunal exchanges between continents. We are still working to understand how these processes developed.”

“This research was possible thanks to the collaboration of several European institutions and local organizations dedicated to the preservation of Portugal’s geological and paleontological heritage,” said Miguel Moreno-Azanza, from the University of Zaragoza in Spain.

In addition to Nova FCT and UNED, Portuguese research institutions such as the Natural History Society of Torres Vedras and the Lourinhã Museum, which house the material studied, and the University of Lisbon participated in the study, published in the scientific journal Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.