Dino card No. 0332 of 2,015

Camarillasaurus

Say it: ka-MAR-ee-lah-SORE-us

Name means: “Camarillas lizard”1

Ate: MeatSpinosaursEarly Cretaceous

Camarillasaurus was a meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Spain. It had a long snout and sharp teeth, and scientists think it might have eaten fish and other animals. This dinosaur is one of the few spinosaurs found in Europe.1 3

Lived

126 to 121 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Fuente Amar outcrop, near Camarillas village, Teruel Province, Spain3 2

Food

Meat3

Artist's life restoration of Camarillasaurus — How Camarillasaurus may have looked, by FunkMonk. CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Scientists still argue about colours and details.

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Camarillasaurus was first thought to be a ceratosaur, but later studies showed it is actually a spinosaur, a type of fish-eating dinosaur.1

The only known fossils of Camarillasaurus were found in a small area of about five square metres, all from one individual.2

Its bones were discovered by a farmer named Pedro Cirugeda Buj while ploughing his field.2

Camarillasaurus lived about 130 to 125 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period.1

This dinosaur is one of several spinosaurs found in Spain, along with Baryonyx and Vallibonavenatrix.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Camarillasaurus
Named by: Sánchez-Hernández and Benton 20143
Group: Spinosaurs
Family / clade: Spinosauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Spinosauridae3
Age of the rocks: 126 to 121 million years (Barremian)3
Rock formations: Camarillas3
Countries: Spain3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Camarillasaurus was named in 2014 by paleontologists Bárbara Sánchez-Hernández and Michael J. Benton. The fossils were found by Pedro Cirugeda Buj in a field near Camarillas, Spain.3 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating whether Camarillasaurus was a ceratosaur or a spinosaur. Most recent studies place it in the spinosaur family, but some details of its skeleton are still unclear.1

Where the facts come from

Camarillasaurus (en.wikipedia.org)
Filling the ceratosaur gap: A new ceratosaurian theropod from the Early Cretaceous of Spain (app.pan.pl)
Camarillasaurus in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.