Diplodocus, the long-necked, whip-tailed sauropod that has stood in natural history museums for more than a century, may have lived in Europe too. Paleontologists from Spain's Fundación Dinópolis have identified 14 tail vertebrae and several chevron bones from a single animal found near El Castellar in Teruel province as belonging to the genus, in a study published this month in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Until now, every confirmed Diplodocus fossil came from the Morrison Formation, the rock layers that stretch across the western United States. The Spanish bones, about 150 million years old, would show the genus lived on both sides of the young Atlantic Ocean.

That raises a question with no easy answer: how did an animal roughly 82 feet (25 meters) long get from North America to Iberia? The authors argue the find is among the strongest evidence yet for episodes of animal dispersal between the two landmasses during the Late Jurassic. Not every outside expert is convinced the bones are Diplodocus at all.

What the Teruel Specimen Shows

The bones come from the La Tejería site, a locality already known for sauropods, theropods, stegosaurs and ornithopods. The site was discovered in 2008, when five vertebrae were collected, and excavations in 2014 and 2015 recovered nine more, according to ZME Science. The vertebrae come from the middle and rear of the tail.

The team relied on a combination of anatomical features in the vertebrae and chevrons, the small bones that hang beneath the tail, to make the identification. Both traditional anatomical comparisons and two statistical approaches to building family trees, maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference, placed the specimen within Diplodocus as a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum, according to the Taylor & Francis announcement. The specimen has not been assigned to a species.

Co-author Alberto Cobos, managing director of the foundation, estimated the animal was about 82 feet long, comparable to its North American relatives. "We are delighted with this discovery," lead author Sergio Sánchez Fenollosa, a doctoral student at Fundación Dinópolis, told Sci.News.

A Crossing Over a Young Atlantic

In the Late Jurassic, the North Atlantic was only beginning to open and was far narrower than today. Researchers have long argued that intermittent land connections allowed some animals to move between North America and Europe.

Europe was not empty of long-tailed sauropods before this find. Portugal's Late Jurassic rocks have produced diplodocid relatives such as Dinheirosaurus. What makes the Teruel specimen different is that it has been assigned to Diplodocus itself, a genus that until now served as a textbook example of a North American dinosaur.

Diplodocus would join other genera reported on both sides of the proto-Atlantic, including the predators Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus and Torvosaurus and the plated Stegosaurus. The sauropod Supersaurus has also been reported from Iberia, though that identification remains debated. Together, these shared animals suggest Late Jurassic dinosaur communities in western North America and Iberia were connected rather than isolated. The exact route of any crossing remains uncertain.

Outside Experts Are Divided

Independent paleontologists who reviewed the study for Science Media Centre Spain praised its quality but split on the identification. Pedro Mocho of the University of Lisbon said the fragmentary specimen retains enough information to attribute it to Diplodocus with a fair degree of certainty, and Xabier Pereda Suberbiola of the University of the Basque Country called it a significant discovery.

Others were more cautious. Fabien Knoll of Spain's National Museum of Natural Sciences said 14 tail vertebrae and some chevrons are not yet enough to state with certainty that the animal was Diplodocus rather than Supersaurus, Dinheirosaurus, another known genus, or a new one. José Ignacio Canudo of the University of Zaragoza said he considers the remains too fragmentary for a genus-level assignment, while noting that the broader case for a Jurassic connection between Iberia and North America does not depend on it.

The limits are clear. The specimen consists entirely of tail material, with no skull, limbs, or neck, which restricts what scientists can say about its size, age, and exact identity. A shared genus also would not show which direction the animals moved. More complete European remains, and more precise dating on both sides of the Atlantic, would be needed to settle those questions.

Why It Matters to American Readers

Diplodocus holds a special place in U.S. science history. It was first discovered in the American West in 1878, and casts of Diplodocus skeletons sent to museums around the world in the early 20th century made it one of the most recognized dinosaurs anywhere.

The new find frames that American icon as part of a wider Jurassic world. It also highlights the scientific value of the Morrison Formation, much of which lies on federal public lands, including Dinosaur National Monument on the Utah-Colorado border. Discoveries abroad often depend on detailed comparisons with specimens collected and curated in American museums.

The Spanish fossils are displayed in the dinosaur hall of the Museo Aragonés de Paleontología at Dinópolis in Teruel. In the United States, well-known Diplodocus displays include the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, home of the original Diplodocus carnegii, and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

The next steps are more fieldwork in Spain and Portugal and, potentially, a formal species name. The bottom line: a run of tail bones in eastern Spain may extend a symbol of the American West across the Jurassic Atlantic, and experts will be watching for more complete

What Readers Want to Know

What was discovered in Spain?

Fourteen tail vertebrae and several chevron bones from one sauropod, identified by the research team as Diplodocus, were found at the La Tejería site near El Castellar in Teruel province.

Why is this discovery important?

If the identification holds, it is the first Diplodocus found outside North America. All previous confirmed specimens came from the Morrison Formation in the western United States.

How old are the fossils?

About 150 million years old, from the Late Jurassic, roughly the same age as the American Diplodocus fossils.

Do all scientists agree it is Diplodocus?

No. Some independent paleontologists support the identification, while others say tail bones alone are not enough to rule out related genera such as Supersaurus or Dinheirosaurus.

Is it a new species?

Not yet. The specimen has been assigned to the genus Diplodocus as a close relative of Diplodocus hallorum, but no species name has been given.

Where can I see the fossils?

The Spanish specimen is displayed at the Museo Aragonés de Paleontología at Dinópolis in Teruel. Famous U.S. Diplodocus displays include the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.