Zby

An illustration of an extinct sauropod dinosaur. It has the long neck and tail typical of sauropods, along with stump-like front feet that only have a single thumb claw. It also has speculative bristle-like feathers on its face, neck, back, and tail.

Zby atlanticus, a sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of Portugal (~156-151 mya). While its genus name might look like a keyboard smash, it was actually named after the Russian-French paleontologist Georges Zbyszewski, who spent much of his career studying Portuguese fossils.

(As for how to pronounce it, according to the original paper it’s “zee-bee”.)

It was a close relative of Turiasaurus, the largest dinosaur currently known from Europe – and although Zby itself wasn’t quite so enormous it was still pretty big, probably measuring somewhere around 15-19m long (49′2″-62′4″).

In fact, all the sauropods known from Late Jurassic Portugal seem to have grown to very large adult sizes. The complete lack of medium or small forms suggests that other types of herbivorous dinosaurs may have dominated the region’s lower-browsing niches at the time.

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