Discovery of gigantic dinosaur in Australian outback could rewrite history

A SPECIES of plant-eating dinosaur has been discovered in Australia, prompting researchers to rethink how dinosaurs spread across the globe.

Remains of the huge dinosaur were discovered in the Australian outback by David Elliot who stumbled upon the bones on his sheep station in the central Queensland town of Winton while herding sheep.

The four-legged, six metre tall, long-necked species belongs to group of dinosaurs known as sauropods which includes the similar looking brontosaurus.

The group of dinosaurs is notable for their large size and it’s believed the new breed grew to at least 14 metres from head to tail.

Named Savannasaurus elliottorum after the desert landscape it was found in, the newly discovered dinosaur from the Cretaceous period also belongs to a subset of species known as titanosaurs, thought to have evolved in South America.

It’s one of the most complete Cretaceous sauropod skeletons ever found in Australia.

The fossil discovery was reported Thursday in prestigious journal Scientific Reports and has significant implications for how scientists think dinosaurs migrated around the globe, causing them to speculate its ancestors had trekked across Antarctica some 105 million years ago.

The species was reported alongside fossil analysis of another similar but previously described species, known as Diamantinasaurus matildae.

Together the presence of the two dinosaurs (which Palaeontologists nicknamed Wade and Matildain) in Australia has led scientists to reimagine their theory of how they spread across the ancient megacontinent of Gondwana, which joined Australia, Africa, Antarctica and South America.

“Australian dinosaurs have played a rare but controversial role in the debate,” researchers pointed out in the journal report.

Some experts say they arrived far earlier than the Cretaceous period, which ended with a cataclysmic bang some 66 million years ago.

But the new find points to another scenario, said Stephen Poropat, a scientist at Uppsala University in Sweden and lead author of the study.