Sauropods had a bad habit of losing their heads after death. Despite the relatively stout and sturdy anatomy of the rest of their bodies, the small, fragile heads at the end of their ludicrously-long necks often became detached and tumbled away, coming to rest elsewhere or getting bashed to skeletal shards as burial flows took them away.

The frustrating dearth of sauropod crania is what makes the 154 million year old Europasaurus so remarkable. In a new Journal of Systematic Paleontology study, paleontologist Jean Sebastian Marpmann and colleagues note that researchers have uncovered 123 skull bones, representing at least 14 individuals, of this dwarfed sauropod that used to tromp ...