New dinosaur species discovered in Australia, one of world's biggest
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[June 08, 2021]
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Scientists have
confirmed the discovery of a new dinosaur species in Australia, one of
the largest found in the world, more than a decade after cattle farmers
first uncovered bones of the animal.
The plant-eating sauropod lived in the Cretaceous period between 92
million and 96 million years ago when Australia was attached to
Antartica, according to a research paper published on Monday.
Paleontologists estimated the dinosaur reached a height of 5-6.5 metres
at the hip and 25-30 metres in length, making it as long as a basketball
court and as tall as a two storey building.
That makes the new species the largest dinosaur ever found in Australia
and puts it in the top five in the world, joining an elite group of
titanosaurs previously only discovered in South America.
"Discoveries like this are just the tip of the iceberg," said Queensland
Museum curator and palaeontologist Scott Hocknull.
Paleontologists have named the sauropod "Australotitan cooperensis",
combining "southern titan" with the name of a creek near where the first
of the creature's bones were found in 2006 on a cattle farming property
in Eromanga in Queensland state.
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The confirmation of the new species marks a seventeen-year long journey
to first unearth and then compare the bones of "Cooper", as the dinosaur
is more informally known, to other finds.
Dinosaur bones are enormous, heavy and fragile, and are kept in museums
around the world, making scientific study difficult.
The team from the Eromanga Natural History Museum and the Queensland
Museum used new digital technology for the first time to 3-D scan each
bone for comparisons.
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![](../images/060821PICS/news_k19.jpg)
Dr. Scott Hocknull and Robyn Mackenzie pose with a 3D reconstruction
and the humerus bone of "Cooper," a new species of dinosaur
discovered in Queensland and recognised as the largest ever found in
Australia, in this undated handout image made available to Reuters
on June 8, 2021 in Eromanga, Australia. Eromanga Natural History
Museum/Handout via REUTERS
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"To make sure Australotitan was a different species, we needed to
compare its bones to the bones of other species from Queensland and
globally," Hocknull said. "This was a very long and painstaking task."
Robyn Mackenzie, who was mustering cattle with her husband Stuart on
their property when they discovered the bones, founded the Eromanga
Natural History Museum to house the find.
A swath of further discoveries of dinosaur skeletons in the area, along
with a rock-shelf believed to have been a sauropod pathway, are still
awaiting full scientific study.
"Palaeo Tourism has been huge globally so we're expecting a lot of
international interest when our borders re-open," said Mackenzie, now a
field paleontologist.
Hocknull said even larger dinosaur specimens are waiting to be
discovered, given the plant-eating sauropods were generally preyed on by
huge theropods.
"We've found a couple of small theropod dinosaurs in Australia ... but
it wouldn't have bothered Australotitan, which suggests there is a very
large predatory dinosaur out there somewhere. We just haven't found it
yet."
(Reporting by Paulina Duran in Sydney; Editing by Jane Wardell)
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