Dinópolis publishes an article in a prestigious American scientific journal about stegosaur dinosaurs

Paleontologists from the Teruel -Dinópolis Paleontological Foundation and the Alpuente Paleontological Museum have conducted research published in the prestigious scientific journal “Palaeontologia Electronica” . The article describes new stegosaur dinosaur fossils from several sites located in the municipalities of El Castellar, Jabaloyas, Monteagudo del Castillo, Mora de Rubielos, and Riodeva, as well as in Alpuente (Valencia). 

Sergio Sánchez Fenollosa , a researcher at the Dinópolis Foundation and first author of the article, points out that “the study of new fossils, along with the review of the entire known record in Teruel and Valencia, has allowed us to deepen our understanding of the stegosaurs that inhabited the coastal Jurassic ecosystems of eastern Iberia. To date, the dacentrurine lineage is the only one identified.”

“The abundance of fossils from this group, whose main representative is Dacentrurus, suggests that it was abundant in these ecosystems. The absence of other stegosaur groups present in other regions of Laurasia, such as stegosaurines, may be due to their living in more continental environments,” he adds. 
The fossils studied have been assigned to the species Dacentrurus armatus , as well as to the groups Dacentrurinae, Neostegosauria, Stegosauridae, and Stegosauria, based on the different deposits and characteristics of the specimens.

THIS IS WHAT STEGOSAURS LOOKED LIKE

Stegosaurs are primarily characterized by their herbivorous diet, quadrupedal locomotion, and the two rows of plates and/or spikes running from the base of their necks to the tip of their tails. This research provides relevant and novel information about the diversity and ecology of these emblematic and iconic dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic, approximately 150–145 million years ago.

Alberto Cobos , the managing director of the Dinópolis Foundation and co-author of this article, highlights that “the exceptional abundance and preservation of the fossil record, both of bones and footprints, of this type of plate-footed dinosaur in the central-eastern Iberian Peninsula, places Spain as one of the most important countries in the world for the study of the emblematic stegosaurs.”