Camarillasaurus

Camarillasaurus (meaning "Camarillas lizard") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous period (Barremian) of Camarillas, Teruel Province, in what is now northeastern Spain. Described in 2014, it was originally identified as a ceratosaurian theropod, before being referred to the Spinosauridae in 2021. Fossils of Camarillasaurus were discovered in the Camarillas Formation. The type species, Camarillasaurus cirugedae, was described by palaeontologists Bárbara Sánchez-Hernández and Michael J. Benton. The describers considered it to be a basal ceratosaur, somewhat unusual given its young age. However, in an abstract given at the EAVP 2019 conference, Oliver Rauhut and colleagues suggested it is a member of the Spinosauridae rather than a ceratosaur, based on characters of the posterior caudal vertebrae and newly excavated material at the type locality; a chapter of a 2019 dissertation by Adun Samathi concurred with that conclusion. In 2021, the chapter was formally published as a paper, with the same conclusion; Samathi noted similarities with spinosaur material from Thailand and other taxa within the family. Camarillasaurus is one of 4 spinosaurid taxa known from the Iberian peninsula, the others being Vallibonavenatrix, Protathlitis and Iberospinus.