Miragaia longicollum

Miragaia (named after Miragaia, the parish in Portugal and geologic unit where its remains were found) is a long-necked stegosaurid dinosaur. Its fossils have been found in Upper Jurassic rocks in Portugal (Lourinhã Formation, Sobral Unit) and possibly also Wyoming, United States (Morrison Formation). Miragaia has the longest neck known for any stegosaurian, which included at least seventeen vertebrae. Miragaia is based on holotype ML 433, a nearly complete anterior half of a skeleton with partial skull (the first cranial material for a European stegosaurid). The remains were found after the construction of a road between the villages of Miragaia and Sobral. The rear half of the skeleton was probably destroyed by the roadcut. The fossils were dug up in August 1999 and August 2001. Among the recovered bones were most of the snout, a right postorbital, both angulars of the lower jaws, fifteen neck vertebrae (the first two, which articulated with the skull, were absent), two anterior dorsal vertebrae, twelve ribs, a chevron, the shoulder bones, most of the forelimbs including a possible os carpi intermedium, a right first metacarpal and three first phalanges; and thirteen bony plates plus a spike. The bones were not articulated but dispersed over a surface of about five to seven metres, though there was a partial concentration of fossils that could be salvaged within a single block. ML 433 was found in the Miragaia Unit of the Sobral Unit, Lourinhã Formation, which dates to the late Kimmeridgian-early Tithonian (Late Jurassic, approximately 150 million years ago). Octávio Mateus, Susannah Maidment and Nicolai Christiansen named and briefly described Miragaia in 2009. The type species is Miragaia longicollum. The generic name refers to the village of Miragaia a parish of Porto. The specific name means "long neck" from the Latin longus, "long" and collum, "neck". A partial pelvis (ilium and pubic bone) and two partial dorsal vertebrae from a juvenile individual (specimen ML 433-A) were found at the same location, intermingled with the bones of the holotype, and were also assigned, as a paratype, to M.