Buñuel's forgotten lizard, the new great dinosaur discovered in Teruel
It has been christened Oblitosaurus bunnueli in honor of Calanda film director Luis Buñuel. It is a new dinosaur found in Teruel, and not just any dinosaur. An investigation carried out by researchers from the Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis Foundation has resulted in the description of a new genus and a new species of ornithopod dinosaur, the oblitosaurus (forgotten lizard).. The details of the research have been published this Tuesday in the latest issue of the scientific journal Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Ornithopod dinosaurs had three-toed feet, similar to those of birds, and were one of the most successful groups of herbivores of their time.. They had a horny beak, a short neck, and lacked armor.. The Oblitosaurus found in Teruel is the largest ornithopod from the Jurassic in Europe, since its length could reach seven meters, and it inhabited the coastal ecosystems of the eastern peninsula during the Late Jurassic, approximately 150 to 145 million years ago.
The fossils of Oblitosaurus bunnueli found (femur, tibia, fibula, calcaneus, talus, metatarsus, phalanges of the foot and hand, and a tooth) come from paleontological excavations carried out by the Dinópolis Foundation at the Barrihonda-El Humero site. , located in Upper Jurassic sediments of the municipality of Riodeva.
From this same site come the fossils of the largest sauropod dinosaur defined in Europe to date, Turiasaurus riodevensis, and fossils of Dacentrurus armatus, among other vertebrates and invertebrates.
Its size was exceptionally large for an ornithopod from this geological time period.. In fact, its dimensions resemble other more modern ornithopods from the Lower Cretaceous, about 125 million years ago.
a new species
Sergio Sánchez Fenollosa, first author of the study, has indicated that “the presence of unique characteristics present in the fossil bones studied, different from those of other similar dinosaurs, has allowed us to define this new genus and this new species of ornithopod dinosaur”.
These particularities, along with others, including its large size, “are what make Oblitosaurus bunnueli a very important dinosaur for understanding and reconstructing the evolutionary history of this lineage”, all this in a context in which the fossils of this type of dinosaur they are especially rare in the European Jurassic. “Likewise, our study has allowed us to reveal the identity of a possible producer of the large ornithopod footprints found in the Upper Jurassic of the entire Iberian Peninsula,” adds the researcher.
For his part, Francisco Javier Verdú, co-author of the publication, explained that the Oblitosaurus bunnueli has allowed them to “understand better what the diversity of this group of dinosaurs was like during the Jurassic. In addition, the analysis of the evolutionary relationships of Oblitosaurus with other ornithopods has made it possible to redefine what hookworms are and to have more evidence to resolve the relationship between the species of the genus Camptosaurus, whose fossils have been discovered in North America and Europe.”
According to Alberto Cobos, managing director of the Dinópolis Foundation and co-author of the work, “in some way it can be said that, due to the large dimensions of the sauropod and stegosaur fossils from this same site, those assigned to ornithopods had gone somewhat unnoticed.”. That is why we have called the genre of the new dinosaur, Oblitosaurus, forgotten lizard and, through one of its best-known films, Los Olvidados, we have related it to one of the most famous directors in the history of cinema, Luis Buñuel from Teruel; hence the name of the new species O. bunnueli».
For Cobos, this finding “is the best way to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Teruel-Dinópolis Paleontological Complex Foundation and to pay tribute to Luis Buñuel in the framework of the 40th anniversary of his death.”