Bones of giant dinosaur found
news.com.au
10/10/2001
By BRENDAN O'MALLEY
THE bones of the biggest dinosaur found in Australia have been unearthed on a remote sheep
property near Winton in western Queensland.
Queensland Museum fossil experts will announce details of the discovery in Brisbane today.
They declined yesterday to reveal details, but Arts Minister Matt Foley said the animal, a
plant-eater from the titanosaurid family, was the largest fossil found in Australia.
Titanosaurids were a family in a group of gigantic plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods
which lived in many parts of the world.
They had extremely long necks and tails, small heads and large bodies.
"This dinosaur would have stretched the length of five cars and would have been able
to look into a window on a two-storey building," Mr Foley said.
"We're talking about something that was very long, possibly about 16m to 21m.
"Even the thigh bone was half a metre wide and as tall as a family fridge. He would
have weighed as much as five African elephants," Mr Foley said.
Some of the bones have been recovered, including the thigh bone, ribs and part of the
animal's backbone.
All of the remains found so far were exposed on the surface but it was believed more
bones, possibly even the skull, lay beneath.
The bones could form the most complete remains of a sauropod dinosaur pieced together in
Australia.
Mr Foley said the lumbering giant roamed Queensland about 95 million years ago. END OF REPORT
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