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New dinosaur dropped: Iguanadon-like creature identified via Spanish jawbone find

Early Cretaceous ornithopods add a new relative to their ranks with Portellsaurus' debut.

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iguanodon-like dinosaur

The newly discovered Portellsaurus sosbaynati, pictured in this rendering, makes its debut via a jawbone unearthed in Spain.

 Santos-Cubedo et al, 2021, PLOS ONE

Scientists have identified a new Iguanadon-like dinosaur roughly the size of a U-Haul moving truck from a jawbone fossil that was uncovered in the Castellón, Spain. Up to 26 feet long, the herbivorous Portellsaurus sosbaynati is closely related to species found in modern-day China and Niger. 

The new species, belonging to the Ornithischia branch of dinosaurs, was revealed Wednesday in the journal PLOS. Although the specimen used in the study was originally discovered by a trio of scientists in 1998, the research team says the latest identification of Portellsaurus as a unique species (named for the Portell region of Spain) sheds crucial insight into the evolution of hadrosauroids in the Early Cretaceous period.