Paleontologists have confirmed that they have found a new dinosaur species. This is Australia's largest dinosaur and one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered.
Over a decade ago, cattle farmers in Australia uncovered the dinosaur bones, but the species it belonged to was unknown. Recent analysis showed that it was a plant-eating dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous period between 92 million and 96 million years ago when Australia was still a part of Antarctica.
The researchers published the findings of their study, "A new giant sauropod, Australotitan cooperensis gen. et sp. nov., from the mid-Cretaceous of Australia," in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ.
Meet Cooper, Australia's Largest Dinosaur Ever Found
According to CNN, dinosaur bones were found at Cooper Creek in the Eromanga Basin in southwest Queensland in 2007. Its identification remained a mystery for years, until now when scientists have described Australia's largest dinosaur.
Researchers at the Eromanga Natural History Museum (ENHM) and the Queensland Museum named the dinosaur species Australotitan cooperensis, also dubbed Cooper, after the place where it was discovered.
Scientists said that as Australia's largest dinosaur species, Cooper now belongs to the elite group of dinosaurs known as titanosaurs. They are plant-eating long-necked sauropods, which are the largest species of dinosaurs.
Cooper is estimated to have reached a height of 5 to 6.5 meters (16.4 to 21.3 feet) at the hip and 25 to 30 meters (82 to 98.4 feet) long. That makes them as tall as a two-story building and as long as a basketball court, according to scientists at ENMH.
"The pieces were quite big and chunky," said ENHM co-founder Robyn Mackenzie, according to CNN. "We were able to measure the bones and compare them with other species in Australia and the rest of the world."
3D-scanning technology was used to analyze several large pieces of the dinosaur's bones, including its shoulder blades, pelvic bones, and limbs, which were mostly intact. Since the dinosaur bones were so large, they were stored in different museums that are hundreds of miles away from each other.
Giant Dinosaurs in Antarctica
Diego Pol, head of paleontology at the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Argentina, told NPR that the recent discovery of Australotitan cooperensis confirms that titanosaurs did inhabit Australia. He noted that these extremely large dinosaurs have previously been only found in South America.
He added that perhaps these dinosaurs were living in the large mass of land in what is now South America, Australia, and Antarctica. That could also mean that digging the right spots in Antarctica might also reveal some dinosaur skeletons of a titanosaur.
Researchers say that Australotitan cooperensis is closely related to three sauropod species that also lived in Australia at the same time when the newly discovered species was alive.
"We found that Australotitan was the largest in the family, followed by Wintonotitan with big hips and long legs, whilst the two smaller sauropods, Diamantinasaurus and Savannasaurus, were shorter in stature and heavily set," Queensland Museum paleontologist Scott Hocknul said in a statement in EurekAlert!
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