Remains of 'hunchback' dinosaur discovered in Spain

My dear friends,

A 'hunchback' dinosaur that roamed the Earth 130 million years ago has been unearthed in Spain.

Spain never seezes to amaze me, it seems every other day they are finding new and wonderfull things below their surface.

This is a recent find :

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a3bd3573133d.jpg[/atsimg]

A new species of dinosaur, Concavenator corcovatus, with an unusual hump-like structure of the vertebrae and a series of small bumps on the ulna, discovered in Spain Photo: AFP/GETTY

It has been dubbed "the hunchback hunter of Las Hoyas" where it was found near the city of Cuenca in western Spain.

Even though its appearance is small in size, I still wouldnt have liked to cross its path, ya know, with it being part of the theropods that included T Rex and weighing in at a whopping four and a half tonnes!

The researchers also suggest the dinosaur could help to identify some fragmentary theropod remains from the European Lower Cretaceous – a geologic period stretching from 146 to 100 million years ago.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

I'm sure are Spanish diggers will be unearthing alot more as the year goes on.

I thought this was worth sharing, it certainly grabbed my attention.

Thanks for looking

Be safe be well,

Spiro

reply to post by Spiro


Looks like a dinosaur got freaky with a shark and that's what happened.

Neat find!

"The bells ! The bells!"

Pretty cool new Dino you got there.

My dear friend,

Originally posted by MeSoCorny
reply to post by Spiro

 

Looks like a dinosaur got freaky with a shark and that's what happened.

Neat find!

Or perhaps its GPS antenna, ya know, to avoid the big boys and what not. Perhaps to find water lmao

Be safe be well

Spiro

Awesome!

Though I have not seen this article in the news (though it is true I do not see the news, lol). I'll see if they say something tonight.

I will tell if they say something new.

Thumbs up for Cuenca!

Talking about the dinosaur, that thing had to do something, but I can't imagine what. It may be like the spine from the Spinosaurus, but I'm not too sure. Maybe it was used in reproduction.

It was not discovered recently, but years ago. But now is when scientists have been able to identify it was a dinosaur, and an undiscovered one. The rock where it was found was split and they had a difficult work to join them. Also, details like the scales can be seen in its legs and tail. (Source)

Click to show full picture.

Originally posted by Spinotoror

My dear friend,

Good find indeed, pity I cant read spanish though

Star for sure

Look forward to seeing what esle comes up,

Be safe be well

Spiro

They keep calling it a hunchback, because I guess that's catchy, but it seems more fin-like. Like the beginning a structure similar to Spinosaurus.

I haven't seen a good pic of the bones so I can't tell exactly what the "hump" looks like. they say it's a few tall vertebrae, I think.

reply to post by Spiro

Thanks, don't worry cause I'm translating it.

Translation of elpais.es article:

A dinosaur from an unknown species to date has been discovered. It is high, carnivore, owns a strange hump and was discovered in Las Hoyas, Cuenca. It lived 125 million years ago and it's the most completed skeleton ever found in Spain. This 19,6 feet long animal was adult, four times higher than the velociraptor of Jurassic Park.

This fossil is presented in Nature magazine with an article wrote by the three scientists that discovered and studied it (Francisco Ortega, Fernando Escado and José Luis Sanz).

This dinosaur was named as Concavenator corcovatus and nicknamed Pepito, though it was adult. [Pepito is the diminutive name of Pepe]. The original name, that means Cuenca's hunchback hunter, reveals that "this animal is a predator that hunts and eats carrion, like a lion", says Sanz, a spanish dinosaur expert.

Regarding to the hump, it's a peculiar and surprising characteristic, as it has not been identified in any other dinosaur, though some of them had a spine in their back that was supposed to regulate the corporal temperature [Spinosaurus]. In this case, scientists don't know why Pepito has the hump.

This new spanish dinosaur reveals important and surprising information regarding the history of these animals from the Cretacic. It belongs to carcharodontosaurus genre, which was supposed to live in the south hemisphere until some years ago. The fossil discovered in England a few years ago, and now, Pepito, both from the north hemisphere, mean that we have to fix the idea we had of their evolutionary and geographic trajectory.

Another characteristic from this dinosaur were the bumps discovered in its forearm, similar to the ones that actual birds have. Pepito didn't fly, but "the bumps on its forearm mean that it had structures that, in the future, would develop into bird feathers".

We have to remember that recent fossils discovered in China and, now, in Spain, tell that not all dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago (most likely due to the meteorite impact) but some of them survived and evolved into actual birds.

Pepito was discovered years ago and meant a big surprise for paleonthologists, and they have spent a lot of time to recover the bones from the rock plates. "It's a risky work, we use tools similar to the ones that dentists use, to remove rock without damaging the fossil".

Ortega y Escaso (from the UNED), in the Science Museum of Castilla-La Mancha, Cuenca, was the one that organized this operation.
"The skeleton is crushed and lying to the left and the rock that contained it was split, so it was like a 3D jigsaw puzzle", says Sanz. "In the beginning we thought it could be a marine reptile, a crocodile, or a dinosaur."

The fossil of the concavenator has a great condition, which is something rare in Las Hoyas. Details of the scales in the legs and the tail can be seen.

The words in brackets are anotations of mine.

My dear friend,

Originally posted by Spinotoror
Thanks, don't worry cause I'm translating it.

Many thanks indeed, that certainly put it into better perspective

It appears they keep refering to it as a " Hump ", when in fact, which a member has already mentioned, it looks more like a " Fin "? And, they mention it doesn't resemble any other known species of dino.

Whats your perception of this?

Many thanks again my friend, another star for sure. Keep this up and you will have more stars than Phage lol

Be safe be well

Spiro

reply to post by Spiro


Haha, you're welcome and thanks, again.

I too think it is a spine, more than a hump.

Source

Click to show full picture

Source

And here's a higher resolution picture of the drawing of the animal.

edit on 9-9-2010 by Spinotoror because: I hate this box

My dear friend,

Originally posted by Spinotoror

Thank you very much, good research indeed.

There seems to be a connection to the species of a bird, When I awake tomorrow I will put some more time into this, its really facinating to say the least, and with me being kinda new to all this its great to research something different, as apposed to Ancient Civilizations and Ancient texts, Photography and Spiritualism

Many thanks again my friend, I greatly appreciate your feedback and knowledge

Be safe and be well to you and your loved ones,

Spiro

reply to post by Spiro


Great. Now we're gonna get more Jaws movies but on land... "Oh no! A prehistoric dinosaur shark with legs was come back to life and rampaging in San Diego. Look out!... "

Seriously, this is a cool find. I wonder if they are interpreting the fossils correctly. Why only 1 hump/fin? Perhaps it had more down its back. But what do I know? I don't have their fancy degree.

They probably need to find at least one other one before they start making any conclusions. Can it be a deformity?

The feather "bumps" are very interesting. That seems pretty positive that it actually had some type of feathers on its arms, at least. There always seems to be questions about others found with feather-like structures.

I wonder why some theropods needed feathers just on their forelimbs?