Paleontologists from Fundación Dinópolis have reported the first confirmed occurrence of the genus Diplodocus outside North America, based on a partial skeleton recovered at La Tejería near El Castellar in Teruel, Spain. The material consists of 14 well-preserved tail vertebrae plus several chevrons and dates to roughly 150 million years ago, near the end of the Jurassic. Osteological study and multiple phylogenetic analyses revealed a suite of features diagnostic of diplodocine sauropods, identifying the specimen as a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum and indicating an animal about 25 m (82 ft) long - comparable in size to its American counterparts.
The discovery provides strong evidence for Late Jurassic faunal interchange between North America and Europe, supporting scenarios in which dinosaurs dispersed across intermittent land bridges as the proto-North Atlantic fluctuated. It also expands the known sauropod diversity of the Iberian Jurassic and reinforces Teruel as a reference locality alongside other large Spanish sauropods such as Turiasaurus and Losillasaurus. The study, led by Sergio Sánchez Fenollosa and colleagues, is slated for publication in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (2026), and the team frames the find as a clear piece of the biogeographic puzzle connecting Laurasian dinosaur faunas.
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