A replic of the Losillasaurus of Aras de los Olmos will be incorporated to the exhibition ‘Els nostres dinosaures’

  • December 16th, 2016
 
Replic of the Losillasaurus of Aras de los Olmos

A life-size replica of the Losillasaurus found in Aras de los Olmos will be incorporated on Friday to the exhibition ‘Els nostres dinosaures’, opened in the Príncipe Felipe Museum of Valencia. The replica has been achieved thanks to the collaboration between the Geology Museum of the UV and the City Hall of Aras.

The dean of the Faculty of Biological Sciences, Javier Lluch, has been in the opening ceremony of the Losillasaurus.

The UV signed an agreement with the City Hall of Aras de los Olmos that took into account actions in different fields and in which the Astronomic Observatory of the UV, the Ethnobotanical Garden of Useful and Medicinal Plants and Big History, Centre of scientific and environmental divulgation, in which palaeontology plays an important role together with geology and archaeology, have participated.

Concerning the Losillasaurus, the idea of a corporeal replica was born in the Geology Museum of the UV. Its conservator, Anna García, has coordinated the recovery and classification of palaeontological and geological pieces of the Francisco Moreno Mesas collection, property of the City Hall of Aras de los Olmos. Using this initial idea, the team university composed by professor Joaquín Martín Cubas, Anna García and Francisco Gascó, doctor and researcher of the UV, with the support of the dean of Biological Sciences, Javier Lluch, and the principal, Esteban Morcillo, have given advice in the elaboration and documentation process of the corporeal replica of the Losillasaurus.

The Losillasaurus is the most ancient and biggest sauropod of the Valencian Community. It was discovered in the municipality of Aras de los Olmos, in the immediate surroundings of its small village called Losilla. Recent studies relate it with the Turiasaurus (the biggest sauropod in Europe and almost in all around the world).

At the end of the 20th century, Francisco Moreno, teacher in Aras de los Olmos, discovered dinosaur remains in town. After showing his discoveries to researchers of the UV and the Institut de Paleontologia M. Crusafont of Sabadell, some excavation campaigns started, in which the partial skeleton of a new sauropod dinosaur was recovered: the first and biggest dinosaur of the Valencian Community.

In 2001, Lourdes Casanovas, José Vicente Santafé and José Luis Sanz named it Losillasaurus giganteus (huge saurian of Losilla) in honour of the small village where it was found. From that moment on, it has been subject of study in diverse scientific publications and in a doctoral thesis of Francisco Gascó, of the UV, who has collaborated with his drawings and documentation to carry out the corporeal replica which is now shown in the Príncipe Felipe Museum.