Queensland Museum announces Australia’s largest dinosaur
- 9 Jun 2021
EromangaNaturalHistoryMuseum_LowRes.jpg "Outback Queensland 96-92 Million Years Ago with Australia’s largest dinosaur species, Australotitan cooperensis described by Hocknull and colleagues in 2021. Credit: © Eromanga Natural History Museum, Artist Vlad Konstantinov.")
Meet Australotitan, “the southern titan” or more technically called Australotitan cooperensis – a new species of giant sauropod Dinosaur from Eromanga, Southwest Queensland that has been scientifically described and named by Queensland Museum and Eromanga Natural History Museum palaeontologists.
Australotitan is being labelled as Australia’s largest species to have ever walked the Earth with having reached a height of 5 - 6.5 metres at the hip and 25 - 30 metres in length. Making it within the top 10-15 largest dinosaurs world-wide.
The skeleton was first discovered in 2007 and the scientific publication is the result of a 17 year long joint effort between Queensland Museum and Eromanga Natural History Museum palaeontologists, fossil preparators, geologists, and countless volunteers.
This discovery is extra exciting as it is the first Dinosaur discovery in that particular area of South-west Queensland, marking Queensland as the palaeo-capital of the nation and making for many more discoveries to happen.