Paleontologists from Australia recently identified a collection of dinosaur bones as the smallest sauropod ever to exist. The creature's remains were unearthed decades ago in an outback region of the country. The place, also known as the Upper Cretaceous Winton Formation, serves as a hotspot for dinosaur discoveries and other clues from prehistory.

Ollie: Diamantinasaurus matildae

2022 Australia's smallest sauropod
(Photo: Australian Age of Dinosaurs - Winton)
A juvenile titanosaur was discovered on Elderslie Station and excavated by staff and volunteers from the Museum in 2012. Most of the titanosaur bones were in remarkably good condition and were located about one meter below the surface.

The juvenile dinosaur is known as the Diamantinasaurus matildae. According to the study, the creature belongs to the group known as titanosaurs. These plant-eating beasts grow massively in size and can reach a height of over 30 meters.

The Australian experts behind the Diamantinasaurus discovery named the dinosaur Ollie. Based on the dating information, Ollie lived through the prehistoric world 95 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.

Experts theorized that Ollie most likely died due to being trapped in a mud swamp near the outback's watering hole. The dinosaur might have met its demise by drowning.

Ollie's remains were discovered when a sheep grazier in one of Queensland's outback stumbled upon its fossils. The dinosaur was the third of its species ever found in Australia but recorded as the first adolescent creature from the sauropod collections of the country.

The herbivore dinosaur has approximately 11 meters in length and about 4,200 kilograms in weight. The physiology of Ollie is comparable to an adult-sized elephant when it died during the Cretaceous period.

Adult sauropod individuals could develop and peak at a size of 20 meters to 20 meters.

 

Swinburne University of Technology paleontology specialist and lead author of the study Samantha Rigby explained in an ABC News report that even though Ollie is considered a youngling, the dinosaur is not as small as we thought.

Among the clues that support how young Ollie is were some of the bone fragments of its body are still in the phase before their skeletal fusion and final stages of adolescent development, Rigby added.

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Smallest Sauropod and Titanosaur of Australia

Diamantinasaurus matildae's sauropod group is under the titanosaur category. These dinosaurs are prominent in the southern hemisphere, particularly in the continents that were part of Gondwana.

Compared to previous sauropods unearthed throughout the history of paleontology, the Diamantinasaurus matildae is by far the smallest. Their species have adults that can reach 15 meters in length and at least 15,000 to 20,000 kilograms.

Rigby said that the discovery of Ollie paved the way for us to understand further how the dinosaur species grow and develop.

Ollie was first collected from Winton, Queensland, back in 2012. The remains of the plant-eating juvenile are currently available for viewing at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs' sauropod collection.

The study was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, titled "A juvenile Diamantinasaurus matildae (Dinosauria: Titanosauria) from the Upper Cretaceous Winton Formation of Queensland, Australia, with implications for sauropod ontogeny."

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