user

Submitted

news

view all

Find, view and share videos about news and entertainment from around the Web.
See Videos »

most

COMMENTED

stories

most

RECENT

comments

chilco99 on Antismoking Proposal Gets Graphic
Dal31550 on Serial Killer Sought for 4 Deaths in 6 Days
Gsandersjr on Video Catches Police Chief Kissing Cop
anonymous on Survivor Still Haunted by 1971 Plane Crash
JGrant129 on GOP Questions Sotomayor's Link to Group

News Alerts

The latest updates sent straight to your inbox.

Get AOL News Alerts »

New Dinosaur Find Was a Monster

By ROD McGUIRK

posted: 7 HOURS 15 MINUTES AGO

comments: 226

filed under: Science News, World News

Text SizeAAA

CANBERRA, Australia (July 3) - Scientists have confirmed for the first time that Australia was once home to a dinosaur that was big, fast and terrifying, and they've named it like something from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Meet the Australovenator.

The beast was a 1,100 pound meat-eating predator with three slashing claws on each of its powerful forelimbs that stalked the Outback 98 million years ago, researchers said in a report published Friday.

Skip over this content

Fossilized remnants of its limb bones, ribs, jaw and fangs were found — along with bones of two other new species of gigantic, long-necked herbivores weighing up to 22 tons — in Queensland state over the past three years.

The discovery, analyzed in a 51-page report published in the peer-reviewed online science journal PLoS ONE, was the first substantial find of large dinosaurs in Australia to be revealed in 28 years.

Paleontologists have described Australia as new frontier in vertebrate paleontology and an untapped resource in the world's understanding of the dinosaur age because so few fossils have been found there. This is largely because the relatively flat continent has long been geologically stable. The movement of tectonic plates in other continents has forced layers of rock bearing fossils tens of millions of years old to the surface making them easier to find.

In the latest Queensland find, paleontologists bulldozed top soil more than three feet deep to expose the sandy clay that held the fossils.

The finders nicknamed the 16-foot long carnivore, Australovenator wintonensis, "Banjo," after the poet A.B. "Banjo" Paterson who in 1885 penned Australia's unofficial anthem "Waltzing Matilda" on a sheep ranch near Winton — a cattle town that lies closest to where the dinosaur bones were found. Banjo's Latin name means "Winton's Southern Hunter."

"The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile," the report's lead author, Scott Hocknull, a Queensland Museum paleontologist, said in a statement.

"He's Australia's answer to Velociraptor, but many times bigger and more terrifying," Hocknull added, referring to the turkey-sized prehistoric predators recreated with artistic license in the "Jurassic Park" movies.

Skip over this content

The other two finds — 52-foot-long herbivores — were previously unknown types of titanosaur, the largest dinosaurs that ever lived. The giraffe-like Wintonotitan wattsi and nicknamed Clancy translates from Latin as "Watts' Winton Giant." The Diamantinasaurus matildae resembled a hippopotamus and has been nicknamed Matilda; the Latin name translates as "Matilda's Diamantina River Lizard."

All three lived in the mid-Cretaceous period which extended from 145 million years to 65 million years ago.

Matilda's and Banjo's bones were mingled; Hocknull suspects Matilda became stuck in river mud and that Banjo fell into the same fatal trap while moving in for the kill.

"The jewel in the crown for us is Banjo because it's the most complete meat-eating dinosaur ever found in Australia," Hocknull said.

"All of the carnivorous dinosaurs that we've had in the past were only known from a single bone or tooth," he added.

John Long, a Museum Victoria paleontologist who was not connected with the find, said it was "very exciting stuff."

Long said the last "truly big" dinosaur found in Australia was the partial skeleton of a 30-foot-long herbivore named Muttaburrasaurus which was found near the Queensland town of Muttaburra in 1981.

Long said only single large dinosaur bones had been found since then.

"This is the first time we've got partially articulated skeletons," Long said. "There is enough of the bones to reconstruct them quite confidently."

"We know so little about the Australian dinosaur fauna that any major paper like this is a massive advance on our previous knowledge," he said.

Hocknull said his team would continue unearthing more bones of the three dinosaurs as well as other sites in the Winton area, where fossil bones have been found scattered on the surface since the 1930s.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

2009-07-03 07:28:13

GOOD READ?

96 %

4 %

24 votes

Feds seek prison term for famed Mont. dino hunter
8 days ago
Scientists find more dinosaur bones at Utah quarry
28 days ago

See More Related Articles and Blog Posts

(226)

Sort by:

1 - 10

<< Previous Next 10 >>

Sixeyess4dinner

05:59 PMJul 03 2009

Bobpell 05:20 PMJul 03 2009 Momprayn 05:08 PMJul 03 2009 Research other scientists, archaeology proofs for a young earth, dinos - one shows human print alongside dino, called "Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint" on the site creationevidence.org: @@@@@@@ -------------- That footprint has been debunked years ago, when I find the info i'll send it to you, I cant find it now. Allabout and answers are Christian based organizations, what other outcome would you expect?@@@@@@ Don't bother, Momprayn has been given numerous resourceslinks on countless forums. She doesn't acknowlede them, just posts the same thing over and over......

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

VolksrodRKT

05:44 PMJul 03 2009

Cross61roads 05:12 PMJul 03 2009 OH OH all the religious nuts just crapped their pants===========HAHAHAHA....good one........odd though,you are talking about people such as myself that believe GOD made it all,so instead of throwing some kind of wrench in the relgious machine man using his large brain just made us all know there is much more to see what GOD created....neat story and its wierd that religion comes up everytime they find a big animal like this or a tiny one.....human beings are strange creatures.

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

HedgeTbet

05:42 PMJul 03 2009

THE RELIGIOUS NUTS...BUTTS ARE NOW PUCKERING UP......LMAO.....MOST RELIGION IS BASED ON .."FEAR OF DEATH"...AS HUMANS WANT TO BELIEVE THERE IS MORE....OR WHEN A REALITIVE DIES IT MAKES US FEEL BETTER TO THINK WE WILL SEE THEM AGAIN.....LOL...KIND OF STUPID REALLY WHEN YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT......

AVG RATING:

(1)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

PRAYMONDC

05:38 PMJul 03 2009

ClaudeHL 05:18 PMJul 03 2009 KrzyKra 05:14 PMJul 03 2009 GOD BLESSED AMERICA............ ===== Is that in the Bible?************** Believe what you will... Beliefs are nothing more than suppositions based speculation... Worse yet, religious beliefs are based on Jewish fairy tales... Books written by Jews for their own glorification and superior positioning among other humans on the planet.... This applies equally to the old and new testaments... All Jewish from beginning to end... Yep, we've all been duped & snookered.... Still, we are fortunate that science and higher education allows more and more of us to see the light.

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

Dlss47

05:35 PMJul 03 2009

And who created the dino saurs, the earth and the universe and everything that is? "In the beginning was the Word & the Word was in God's presence, & the Word was God. He was present to God in the beginning. Through HIm all things came into being & apart from Him nothing came to be. Whatever came to be in Him found life, life for the light of men. The light shines on in the darkness, a darkness that did not overcome it." John 1

AVG RATING:

(2)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

PRAYMONDC

05:26 PMJul 03 2009

One is left to wonder if such large creatures exist on other planets in the universe.... I suppose it's entirely feasible.

AVG RATING:

(1)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

Bobpell

05:20 PMJul 03 2009

Momprayn 05:08 PMJul 03 2009 Research other scientists, archaeology proofs for a young earth, dinos - one shows human print alongside dino, called "Alvis Delk Cretaceous Footprint" on the site creationevidence.org: http://75.125.60.6/~creatio1/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4 8&Itemid=24 Of course, criticized -I report, you decide! If untrue, other enlightening info. Won't hear this reported because of the dominant secular scientists/media. Bible: anyone w/an open mind & honest research can come to know as true beyond reasonable doubt. Great informative, factual sites: allabouttruth.org AND answersingenesis.org - -------------- That footprint has been debunked years ago, when I find the info i'll send it to you, I cant find it now. Allabout and answers are Christian based organizations, what other outcome would you expect?

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

ClaudeHL

05:18 PMJul 03 2009

KrzyKra 05:14 PMJul 03 2009 GOD BLESSED AMERICA............ ===== Is that in the Bible?

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

Bobpell

05:15 PMJul 03 2009

AlfredJSenior - So tell me, comic book readers what initiated what is described by Scientific method worshipers as the "Big Bang" or more accurately described in Genesis as the "Big Light" ---------------------- Well written Alfred, here is your answer: Scientists have the courage to admit they don't have all the answers. Can you say the same thing???? I doubt it.

AVG RATING:

(2)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

KrzyKra

05:14 PMJul 03 2009

GOD BLESSED AMERICA............

AVG RATING:

(0)

REPORT!

sign-in to rate

1 - 10 of 226