{"id":848603,"date":"2026-09-15T12:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848603\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T12:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T12:42:13","slug":"diplodocus-long-thought-exclusively-american-turns-up-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848603\/","title":{"rendered":"Diplodocus, Long Thought Exclusively American, Turns Up in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paleontologists from Fundaci\u00f3n Din\u00f3polis<\/a> have identified the first confirmed fossils of the genus Diplodocus<\/a> found outside North America.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Spanish Diplodocus was a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum. Image credit: Carmelo L\u00f3pez.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are delighted with this discovery,\u201d said Fundaci\u00f3n Din\u00f3polis Ph.D. student Sergio S\u00e1nchez Fenollosa.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows us to better understand Iberian Mesozoic ecosystems and the diversity of sauropod dinosaurs that inhabited the European Jurassic.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spanish Diplodocus lived roughly 150 million years ago near the end of the Jurassic period.<\/p>\n

The dinosaur stretched an estimated 25 m (82 feet), on par with its American relatives.<\/p>\n

The animal\u2019s fossilized remains \u2014 14 well-preserved tail vertebrae and several chevron bones \u2014 were unearthed at the La Tejer\u00eda site near the city of El Castellar in the Spanish province of Teruel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Diplodocus from El Castellar was approximately 25 m long, making it another of the giant sauropods of the Spanish Jurassic, alongside other sauropod dinosaurs from Teruel with characteristics very different from those of diplodocids, such as Turiasaurus and Losillasaurus, among others,\u201d said Dr. Alberto Cobos, managing director of Fundaci\u00f3n Din\u00f3polis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an exciting and continuous process of seeing the pieces of the puzzle gradually fall into place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the early stages of the osteological study, we noticed strong similarities with several diplodocine sauropods.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we looked more closely at the anatomy, we began to identify a combination of features characteristic of Diplodocus species.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, as we carried out different evolutionary analyses, they kept pointing in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWith each new result, the picture became clearer: we were looking at a Diplodocus.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the team, the presence of Diplodocus in Iberia offers strong evidence that dinosaurs moved between North America and Europe during that era, likely crossing temporary land bridges that appeared as the proto-North Atlantic Ocean periodically receded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome of the dig is some of the strongest paleontological evidence for episodes of dispersal and faunal exchange between the two continents across the proto-Atlantic Ocean during the Late Jurassic,\u201d S\u00e1nchez Fenollosa said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fossils of all these dinosaurs, including those of the new Diplodocus specimen, make Teruel a reference place for understanding this great diversity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s paper<\/a> will be published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Sergio S\u00e1nchez Fenollosa et al. 2026. Intercontinental evidence of the iconic genus Diplodocus Marsh, 1878 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, in press; doi: 10.1080\/02724634.2026.2718423<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paleontologists from Fundaci\u00f3n Din\u00f3polis have identified the first confirmed fossils of the genus Diplodocus found outside North America.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5165,141552,358852,1076,5168,140769,307506,3209,358853,10907,4265,5171,5172,79,3662],"class_list":["post-848603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-dinosaur","tag-diplodocus","tag-diplodocus-hallorum","tag-europe","tag-fossil","tag-iberia","tag-iberian-peninsula","tag-jurassic","tag-la-tejeria","tag-migration","tag-north-america","tag-sauropod","tag-sauropoda","tag-science","tag-spain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=848603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}