Shepherd discovers dinosaur giant in Patagonia

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• In Patagonia, sheep herder Dionide Mesa has discovered the remains of a dinosaur that is around 155 million years old.
• According to estimates by the research team, the previously unknown long-necked dinosaur is around 20 meters long.
• The dinosaur was named after the shepherd Dionide Mesa in his honor.

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A shepherd finds the remains of the giant animal, which is around 155 million years old, on his farm in Patagonia: The previously unknown long-necked dinosaur is around 20 meters long, according to the estimates of a German-Argentinean research team that recovered and examined the bones of Bicharracosaurus dionidei from Argentina's Upper Jurassic period. The results were published in the scientific journal "PeerJ", as announced by the Bavarian State Natural History Collections (SNSB) in Munich.

30 giant vertebrae recovered

Parts of the spine with more than 30 cervical, dorsal and caudal vertebrae, several ribs and a fragment of the pelvis were recovered. The bone structure shows that it was an adult animal that lived on what was then the southern continent of Gondwana. The skeleton shows similarities with the African Giraffatitan, a brachiosaurid from Tanzania. Other features, however, particularly on its dorsal vertebrae, resemble Diplodocus and its closest relatives from North America.

With their massive bodies, long necks and tails and tiny heads, long-necked dinosaurs - sauropods - correspond to the image of the typical dinosaur for many people. Sauropods are the largest known land animals, with a body length of up to 40 meters. The best-known representatives are Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus.

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Important find in the southern hemisphere

"Our phylogenetic analyses of the skeleton indicate that Bicharracosaurus dionidei was related to the brachiosaurids - the first brachiosaurids from the Jurassic of South America," said the first author of the study, LMU doctoral student Alexandra Reutter. The fossil combines features of different sauropod groups: Some parts of the skeleton resembled the African Giraffatitan, others - especially on the dorsal vertebrae - Diplodocus and its North American relatives.

Study leader Oliver Rauhut from the State Natural History Collections emphasized the significance of the find for research: "Our knowledge of the evolution of sauropods from the Upper Jurassic period has so far been based primarily on many fossil finds from North America and other sites in the northern hemisphere. For a long time, there was only one significant site in Tanzania on the southern continents."

The fossil site of Bicharracosaurus dionidei in the Argentinian province of Chubut now provides important comparative material to supplement and reassess the picture of the evolutionary history of these animals, particularly in the southern hemisphere, said Rauhut.

Dino named after finder

The dinosaur was named in honor of the shepherd Dionide Mesa. The genus name is derived from the Spanish word "bicharraco" for large animal. The fossil is kept in the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Trelew, Argentina.