A Spanish fossil has shifted the origin story of some of Earth’s most formidable hunters. A new paper reexamines Camarillasaurus cirugedae, found near the village of Camarillas in Teruel, Spain, and places it among the spinosaurids, the same broader clan that includes North Africa’s massive Spinosaurus.
This matters because it points to a European root for the line that later produced the giants of Africa. It also suggests these predators were more at home on land than many had assumed, at least during their early history.
The study was led by Oliver W. M. Rauhut of the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology and Geology (SNSB-BSPG), working with colleagues in Zaragoza.
New Camarillasaurus cirugedae fossils
Camarillasaurus cirugedae was first labeled a ceratosaur based on fragmentary bones.
New fieldwork at Fuente Arnar uncovered fresh pieces, including parts of the jaw, tail, tooth, thigh, and foot, which together make a stronger case for spinosaurid traits.
“Phylogenetic analysis identifies Camarillasaurus as a member of the Spinosauridae,” wrote Rauhut. The team points to features in the lower jaw and tail vertebrae that match known spinosaurid anatomy.
Camarillasaurus lived about 128 million years ago in the Barremian slice of the Early Cretaceous. The bones were recovered from continental mudstones and sandstones, not from coastal lagoons or rivers rich with fish.
Camarillasaurus cirugedae origins
“Isolated spinosaurid remains, especially isolated teeth, are relatively abundant,” said Rauhut, citing numerous Barremian sites across Spain and Portugal.
The Iberian Peninsula has produced an outsized share of spinosaurid remains, often as isolated teeth scattered through river plain deposits.
Those teeth and bones sit in red clays and sandstones that record floodplains, estuaries, and back-barrier systems. The pattern fits predators moving across terrestrial landscapes, not just camping at shorelines.
Across the English Channel, the Isle of Wight records a different branch of the family.
A 2021 paper described two new British baryonychines, Ceratosuchops and Riparovenator, and proposed that spinosaurids likely originated in Europe with later dispersals into Africa.
Building the dinosaur family tree
To test relationships, the authors ran a phylogenetic analysis, a method that builds evolutionary trees from shared anatomical characters.
Their dataset included 79 taxa scored across 404 traits, then explored with parsimony searches to find the shortest, most economical trees.
The result also cleans up earlier confusion. Camarillasaurus cirugedae had been proposed as a ceratosaur a decade ago, but several of those identifications were based on misread or incomplete elements that the new material clarifies.
Water hunter or land stalker
Spinosaurus lived in northern Africa about 95 million years ago, and its lifestyle remains hotly debated.
One analysis challenged claims that it was a fully aquatic pursuit predator, arguing that the evidence for powerful swimming is incomplete.
On the other side, earlier research showed that Spinosaurus had a tall, paddle-like tail that generated strong thrust in water flume tests. This supports the idea that it was at least a capable swimmer.
Bone density hints at habits too. A recent study found denser limb bones in Spinosaurus and Baryonyx, consistent with animals that submerge to forage, while Suchomimus looked less aquatic.
Camarillasaurus cirugedae brings a grounded data point to this conversation. Its remains were laid down in continental settings far from permanent deep waters, and the Iberian record repeatedly places spinosaurs in floodplains and estuary margins rather than open coasts.
Dinosaur origins cross continents
Put together, the Spanish material and the British record sketch a simple storyline.
Early spinosaurids diversified in Europe, split into two branches, then lineages related to Camarillasaurus cirugedae moved south and east into Africa where they later produced very large forms.
That path fits the ages. Camarillasaurus sits in the Barremian, roughly 129 to 125 million years ago, and Spinosaurus appears later in the Cenomanian, around 95 million years ago. The timing leaves ample room for dispersal and size increase.
There is a second, quieter implication. If European spinosaurids were comfortable inland, then aquatic specialization may have deepened later, or varied by region and species.
That injects some healthy caution into attempts to generalize from a single celebrity fossil.
Fossil structure seals the case
Spinosaurids are a group of theropod dinosaurs, two-legged predators with long, low skulls and conical teeth.
The family Spinosauridae includes baryonychines and spinosaurines, the latter tending toward straighter, less denticulate teeth and other skeletal tweaks.
The Spanish team flagged spinosaurine signatures in Camarillasaurus cirugedae, including a distinctive tubercle on the surangular of the lower jaw, rod-like mid-tail spines with a slight forward flex, and distal tail joints braced by a bony web.
These details line up with features seen in spinosaurines from Asia and Africa.
“Barremian,” the term for Camarillasaurus’s age, marks an Early Cretaceous interval when Iberia was a patchwork of rivers, floodplains, and lagoons.
Those environments would have been noisy with fish, crocodiles, turtles, and small dinosaurs, a buffet for a predator that could exploit both land and shallow water.
Camarillasaurus cirugedae verdict
The conclusion does not rest on one trait. It rests on a raft of characters across the skull, vertebrae, and limbs, tested against a broad comparative matrix and checked for alternative placements.
It also squares with independent lines of evidence. European baryonychines are well established in the Wealden Supergroup in England, and their phylogenies point to a European cradle for the family with later dispersals abroad.
The study is published in Palaeontologia Electronica.
—–
Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.
Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.
—–