The right humerus of Australia's largest yet dinosaur, pictured here at the Queensland Museum, weighs a hefty 100 kg and is 1.5 m in length.
Credit: Queensland Museum
SYDNEY: Fossil bones of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered in Australia went on display yesterday. The 25-metre-long animals would have been 7 metres longer than the previous record-breaker. You certainly wouldn't want one treading on your foot.
The find constitutes two large leg bones of one dinosaur and one leg of the other. Museum experts predict that there could be more bones of the same individuals yet to be discovered at the same site, possibly sparking off a dinosaur fossil gold rush.
They were found in 2005 and 2006 about 1,000 km west of Brisbane, Queensland, but kept under a veil of secrecy as scientists painstakingly dug them up and studied them.
Cooper and George
The two dinosaurs, nicknamed Cooper and George by researchers, are part of the titanosaur group that lived 95 – 98 million years ago. They were among the largest land animals to ever roam the Earth.
"They are titanosaurs, which are plant-eating dinosaurs with extremely long necks and tails, massive bodies and elephant-like legs," Queensland Minister for Arts Rod Welford said.
Titanosaurs have also been found in South America and North Africa, which along with Australia once formed the super-continent Gondwana.
Cooper and George would have been at least 6 to 7 m longer than another well-known Queensland sauropod, Elliot, who previously yielded the largest bone of any dinosaur found in Australia, said Scott Hocknull a geoscientist at Queensland Museum in Brisbane. "Cooper’s right humerus weighs 100 kg and is a rare complete bone measuring 1.5 m in length," he said.
In fact, the new species – which is yet to be named – is only 20 to 30 cm off the world's largest dinosaurs ever discovered, like Argentinosaurus and Paralititan found in Argentina and Africa respectively.
Sauropod footprints were found in Broome, Western Australia, and date from the same period and are thought to be the kind of footprints that would be made by titanosaurs like Cooper and George. According to the museum, some of these footprints could possibly be amongst the largest in the world.
"Australian dino-rush"
Hocknull said the bones were found in a fossil-rich area that promised to yield many more dinosaurs. At least seven sites have been identified, harbouring hundreds of bone fragments, since the first fossil was uncovered in 2004. Many more sites on the property where Cooper and George were found, are still to be excavated.
The new fossil-rich sites are part of the Winton Formation, a large sequence of rocks from the age of the dinosaurs, which spans Queensland’s interior.
"150 years ago, the United States experienced a dino-rush, where lots of bones were unearthed in a short space of time. Australia is now at the forefront of it's own dino-rush," Hocknull said.
Queensland Museum fossil hunters will conduct further excavations at the site later this month.
with Agençe France-Presse
