Yacimiento: Cuesta Lonsal, Galve, Teruel

The special feature of the Cuesta Lonsal site, geologically located in the Villar del Arzobispo Formation, is that it is where the most complete fossil remains to date from a Jurassic dinosaur from Spain have been found and recovered. These belong to a new sauropod named Galvesaurus herreroi (Barco et al., 2005). Its cladistic analysis indicates that it is a basal neosauropod (Barco et al., 2004; Barco, in press). A complete study of it will provide interesting insights into the phylogenetic relationships surrounding the origins of the neosauropods and the evolutionary radiations that affected them. The site was discovered in the 1980s by José María Herrero. During the earliest excavations the remains recovered included two humeri, a number of vertebrae (cervical, dorsal and caudal) and a few ribs. Dr Gloria Cuenca-Bescós continued the excavations in 1993, finding and extracting a cervical vertebra and publishing the first study of the Cuesta Lonsal sauropod (Pérez-Oñate et al., 1994). In 2000 and 2001 the Grupo Aragosaurus carried out two further excavation campaigns, recovering remains that included in particular vertebrae, cervical and dorsal ribs and one item still in laboratory preparation that could be a sacrum. In total, the remains recovered are: three cervical vertebrae, one cervical rib, one dorsal vertebra, two isolated dorsal spines, one sacrum, six caudal vertebrae, one chevron, one scapula, two humeri, an ischium, a fragment of radius (?), a metatarsal, and a possible sternal plate. Another noteworthy point is the discovery in the same fossiliferous locality of a crocodile tooth (Barco, in press) as well as a theropod dinosaur tooth (Barco and Ruiz-Omeñaca, 2001). Both of these had been shed, i.e. they were not lost as a result of a rupture, but had fallen out in the way most usual among both dinosaurs and crocodiles: reusing the calcium from the root of the old tooth about to be lost in order to finish forming the structure of the replacement tooth (Barco, in press). This aspect, in conjunction with the presence of the bones on a bed of clay and buried by sandstone, has led us to believe that the remains of the Cuesta Lonsal sauropod were for a time exposed to carnivores and scavengers, some of which lost their teeth in the course of feeding. References: Barco, J.L. (2009) Tesis doctoral. Sistemática e implicaciones filogenéticas y paleobiogeográficas del saurópodo Galvesaurus herreroi (Formación Villar del Arzobispo, Galve, España). [Descarga el PDF de este artículo] Barco, J.L. in press. Estudio y comparación del esqueleto axial de un saurópodo (Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha) procedente de la Formación Villar del Arzobispo (Titónico-Berriasiense) de Galve, Teruel. Treballs del Museu de Geología de Barcelona. Barco, J.L., Canudo, J.I., Cuenca-Bescós, G. and Ruiz-Omeñaca (2005). Un nuevo dinosaurio saurópodo, Galvesaurus herreroi gen. nov., sp. Nov., del tránsito Jurásico-Cretácico en Galve (Teruel, NE de España), Naturaleza Aragonesa , 15, 4-17. [PDF] Barco, J.L., Canudo, J.I. Cuenca-Bescós, G. and Ruiz-Omeñaca, J.I. New sauropod remains from the Villar del Arzobispo Formation (Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous transition) of Galve (Teruel, Spain). Abstracts of the 2 nd meeting of the European Association of Vertebrate Paleontologists, Brno, Chec Republic, 19-24 July 2004. [PDF] Barco, J.L. and Ruiz-Omeñaca J.I. (2001). Primeros dientes de terópodo (Dinosauria, Saurischia) en la Formación Villar del Arzobispo (Titónico-Berriasiense): yacimientos Cuesta Lonsal y Las Cerradicas 2 (Galve, Teruel). Publicaciones del Seminario de Paleontología de Zaragoza (SEPAZ), 5, 239-246. Pérez-Oñate, J., Cuenca-Bescós, G. and Sanz, J.L. 1994. Un nuevo saurópodo del Jurásico Superior de Galve (Teruel). Comunicaciones de las X Jornadas de Paleontología , 159-162.