A property owner in Portugal found dinosaur bones while doing home renovations.
At the beginning of August, a team of researchers from Portugal and Spain removed parts of a dinosaur from the ground. The researchers think that the bones are of a brachiosaurid sauropod.
Sauropods were some of the largest dinosaurs in the world and are famous for their long necks and tails. Sauropods were herbivores, meaning that they only ate plants and not other animals.
This Sauropod that was discovered in Pombal, Portugal is estimated to be around 12 meters tall and 25 meters long.
The discovery is part of a project that started in 2017. The property owner started construction and noticed pieces of bone in his backyard. He then contacted a research team which started to excavate the same year.
Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist, says that you can find dinosaur bones anywhere there is old rock; in the desert or in a backyard.
Dinosaurs similar to this one found in Pombal, Portugal lived around 160 to 100 million years ago.
Last month, a new type of carnivorous dinosaur, a dinosaur that eats other animals, was found in Patagonia, Argentina. The new type of dinosaur discovered was about 11 meters long with short arms like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
VOCABULARY
- Property – a building; a house; land
- Renovation – to upgrade; to make better; to make modern; rebuild
- Researcher – a person who does research; a person who studies something to find new results
- Herbivore – an animal that only eats plants
- Discover – to find, especially unexpectedly; to become aware of;
- Estimate – guess; approximate; judge; suppose
- Construction – the action of building something; creation; the action of making a building
- Notice – to become aware of; to see;
- Excavate – to dig out something from the ground; to remove something from the ground
- Paleontologist – a scientist who studies bones and fossils of very old life
- Carnivore – an animal that eats other animals
- English teachers looking for teaching ideas, check out my post on using easy news articles for lessons.
- English learners looking for study ideas, check out my post on using news stories for English practice.
