A Spanish man has been found dead inside a Stegosaurus.

The man's tragic death was discovered by a father and son who investigated after noticing a foul odour emanating from the papier-mache dinosaur, which is located in the Barcelona suburb of Santa Coloma de Gramenet.

The father called emergency services on Saturday after spotting the body through a crack in one of the prosthetic prehistoric beast's legs.

The 39-year-old man had recently been reported missing by his family, police said, who added that no foul play was suspected.

Mossos d'Esquadra, spokeswoman for local police, said that the man may have been trying to retrieve a cellphone.

"We found the body of a man inside the leg of this dinosaur statue. It's an accidental death; there was no violence. This person got inside the statue's leg and got trapped," d'Esquadra said.

"It looks as though he was trying to retrieve a mobile phone, which he'd dropped. It looks like he entered the statue head first and couldn't get out."

The statue has now been removed.

The Stegosaurus, much loved by junior palaeontologists worldwide, is a four-legged, armoured dinosaur from the Late Jurassic age.

Known to be a herbivore in possession of a tiny brain, the Stegosaurus was first discovered in 1877.

Its famous plates have been the subject of intense debate in the palaeontology community, with suggestions made that they acted to lower the animal's body temperature or to intimidate foes or to attract mates.