2023-05-18 17:01:00
Sometimes paleontologists reflect their own passions when it comes to naming new species they discover, and it is easy to assume that this has been the case. A team from the Jaume I University has named a dinosaur, new to science, found in the Cinctorres depositCastellón, in honor of the UEFA Europa League title won by Villarreal CF in 2021 and as a tribute to the centenary of the club that is celebrated this year.
But Protathylitis cinctorrensis (the first word, which defines the new genre, means ‘champion’ in Greek) doesn’t just deserve the name for a football reference. The dinosaur must also have stood out in life, about 126 million years ago. A carnivore that walked on its two hind legs, this spinosaurid theropod was 10 to 11 meters long, as long as a city bus, and weighed two tons. It was probably one of the largest predators in its habitat.
The fossils were recovered at the ANA de Cinctorres site in four different campaigns, from 2004 to 2015. In the same place, 930 fossils of at least two ornithopod dinosaurs (they ate plants), a sauropod (quadruped dinosaur with the neck and long tail) and two theropods (carnivores) including the new species. In addition to dinosaurs, fossils of other Mesozoic vertebrates such as “fish”, sharks or crocodiles have appeared in ANA.
From ‘Campeón’, an almost complete right maxilla, one tooth and five tail vertebrae were found, discovered in the Arcillas de Morella Formation (Cuenca del Maestrat). “In their arms we found strong claws to catch their prey and their conical teeth were located in an elongated snout similar to that of crocodiles,” describes Andrés Santos Cubedo, head of the investigation that was released this Thursday in ‘Scientific Reports’.
The ‘Champion’ Dinosaur
The biggest
‘Champion’ inhabited a coastal area, with beaches, marshes and an estuary. Coniferous forests dominated the landscape, which further towards the coast would give way to ferns and palm trees. “He fed on other animals and perhaps fish. At the moment, no other larger theropod has been found in the Arcillas de Morella formation, so it probably would not have predators,” says the researcher.
According to Santos-Cubedo, “fossils of carnivorous dinosaurs (theropods) are less abundant than those of their plant-eating relatives (ornithopods and sauropods), so finding this type of dinosaur is something exceptional.” Despite the fact that it has been known that there are dinosaurs in the area for more than a hundred years, “it has been in the last decade when the region is revealing itself as a crucial area for the study of European Lower Cretaceous dinosaurs.”
With ‘Campeón’, the province of Castellón now has four new species for science. The first, the ornithopod Morelladon beltrani, it was described in 2015. The second, Vallibonavenatrix cani, a spinosaurine dinosaur, was reported in 2019. The third, another ornithopod, Portellsaurus sosbaynati, was reported two years later. The new species is the first baryonychin dinosaur (with finely serrated dental crowns, in the case of ‘Campeón’, at least sixteen) identified in Arcillas de Morella.
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