An international group of scientists researching a fossil site at Villaggio del Pescatore in north-eastern Italy have found the remains of the “biggest and most complete dinosaur ever found in the country”. This specimen, nicknamed Bruno, along with a smaller specimen named Antonio have been identified as belonging to the species Tethyshadros insularis – a type of hadrosaur or “duckbill dinosaur”. The researchers claim there are at least seven, and possibly eleven, individuals of this species at this site.
They studied the microscopic structure of the bones of the two main specimens and concluded that ‘Antonio’ is an immature individual, whereas ‘Bruno’, which is bigger in size, represents an older individual – which may still have been growing at the time of its death.” Bruno is estimated at 4 metres (13 ft) long. The fossil site is dated as 80 million years old, putting it in the Cretaceous period in the evolutionary timetable.
As well as the dinosaurs the fossil deposit at Villaggio del Pescatore also contains exquisitely preserved “small crocodyliforms, a single pterosaur bone, partial fishes, several crustacean taxa, rare coprolites, pollen, and algae”. According to SciTech Daily article the site provides “a vivid picture of an ancient ecosystem that has no equal worldwide”.
References and Link: SciTech Daily 2 December 2021, Scientific Reports 2 December 2021, doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02490-x.
Editorial Comment: These Italian dinosaurs are a good reminder that dinosaurs are found all over the world, and in just about every country in the world.
The mixture of fossils found with them is very interesting. Rather than being an ancient ecosystem, the mix of land and sea creatures and plants is evidence that this fossil bed is a buried flood dump, where a massive flow of water has washed land and seabed, sweeping up plants and animals, mixing them and dumping them together.
At 4 metres long Bruno may not be the biggest dinosaur ever found but think about how much sediment is required to bury an animal that size, along with 10 of its amiche (friends) and how big a flood is required to pick them up and bury them.
In spite of the claim this “has no equal worldwide”, finding dinosaurs, which are land creatures, buried with sea creatures is quite common. Australia’s most famous dinosaur Muttaburrasaurus was buried in a bed of seashells. In fact, mixed deposits are more the norm than the exception in the fossil record, and serve as a reminder that much of the fossil record is the remains of a worldwide catastrophe, not slowly buried ancient ecosystems.
Creation Research News 8 December 2021
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