Welcome to Galve, land of dinosaurs!
Today I propose you a different outing suitable for all audiences where, with some Earthcaches of the area, you can travel through millions of years and see how the inhabitants that populated the earth during the Jurassic and Cretaceous lived.
Galve is a privileged place by the rocks that form its territory, formed in coastal and inland environments of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous, contain an important fossil record of continental vertebrates (for quantity, quality and diversity), which faithfully illustrates terrestrial ecosystems of that moment in the history of the Earth and makes of Galve one of the most appreciated and recognized paleontological site of Europe.
Along with footprints, eggs and fossil bones of dinosaur, remains of flying reptiles, amphibians, fish, plants and even mammals have been found in Galve.
The Paleontological Parkof Galve, created in 1993, is composed of the Municipal Paleontological Museum, the ichnite sites, models of dinosaurs and the recently joined Legendark.
The Gideonmantellia
The gideonmantellia is the fourth dinosaur described in Galve (after Aragosaurus, Galvesaurus and delapparentia), which makes Galve the most important town in continental Europe in terms of number of dinosaurs (not counting the birds) described in the same locality.
The gideonmantellia is known only by the copy of Galve composed of 104 remains of a single individual, being the individual most complete dinosaur ornitópodo of our country. We found vertebrae, part of the hip and hindlimb, including a virtually full foot. Nothing of the skull was recovered, but teeth isolated from other fields could belong to this dinosaur.
Classification
The absence of the head has made it difficult to study the gideonmantellia. Previous studies have classified this dinosaur with names of known species of other parts of Europe, the most significant is one of the Isle of Wight (England) called Hypsilophodon. However, research at the University of Zaragoza has uncovered that actually is a new dinosaur, introducing a unique morphology in the bones of the hip and the beginning of the tail, not described in any other dinosaur. It belongs to a group of plant eaters dinosaurs called ornithopods. The gideonmantellia would be an agile and fast dinosaur, with a rear member adapted to run fast, essential to escape from predators since it lacked of any defensive shield.
Where is it located?
Gideonmantellia fossils were found in 1982 by José María Herrero with his son Jesus in a red clay reservoir called Poyales Barranco Canales.
The remains of gideonmantellia recovered by José María and studied by the University of Zaragoza are the only ones known as the site was destroyed by the work of a nearby mine of clay extraction.
Life style
It is the smallest dinosaur eater plants described in our country. The reconstruction made from the preserved bones can target a length of more than one meter. The specimen is immature, and there wouldn’t be fully grow, so the adult could be somewhat higher and reach 2 meters and weigh 20 kgs.
The concept of this Earthcache is that the geocacher to knows this dinosaur and that he enjoys this incredible place. I could explain more about the subject but I like my Earthcaches to be brief and concise so visitors leave the place having learned something new. Enjoy it!
Please send me the answers to the following questions. You can log without waiting for my reply, if a problem occurs we will try to find a solution together.
Log this cache as a "found it" and send me your answers via my profile or via message on geocaching.com, and I will contact you in case of problem.
1-. How is the gideonmantellia commonly known?
2-. How many bones were found? You can easily count them in the window. (Those in the boxes count as 1)
3-. Why the skull was not recovered? Ask the manager of the museum, he'll tell you.