After over a decade of careful analysis, scientists have classified a giant dinosaur – first discovered in Australia in 2007 – as a new species that was one of the largest to roam the planet.
According to paleontologists, including those from the Queensland Museum in Australia, the new species Australotitan cooperensis, or the “southern titan,” was “as long as a basketball court”, and would have been up to 6.5m tall and 30m long – making it one of the 15 largest dinosaurs ever found, and the largest of the continent.
The skeletons, first discovered on a sheep and cattle farm in the Australian outback in 2006, were only found to belong to a dinosaur the following year.
Then with years of analysis of the bone scans, paleontologists could distinguish the titanosaur from other known giant dinosaurs of this time period 92-96 million years ago, known as the mid-Cretaceous Period.
“To make sure Australotitan was a different species, we needed to compare its bones to the bones of other species from Queensland and globally. This was a very long and painstaking task,” Scott Hocknull from the Queensland Museum explained in a statement.
The research revealed that the dinosaur belonged to a class of giant plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods that had small heads, very long necks, long tails and thick, pillar-like legs.
“Using 3-D surface scan models we compare features of the appendicular skeleton that differentiate Australotitan cooperensis gen. et sp. nov. as a new taxon,” the scientists wrote in the study, published in PeerJ - the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences.
The researchers say the 3D scan technique allowed them to digitally recreate the skeleton of the dinosaur, which they named Cooper after the nearby Cooper Creek where it was found.
“The 3-D scans we created allowed me to carry around 1000s of kilos dinosaur bones in a 7kg laptop. Better yet, we can now share these scans and knowledge online with the world,” Mr Hocknull said.
He believes the current discovery is just the tip of the iceberg.
“Our ultimate goal is to find the evidence that tells the changing story of Queensland, hundreds of millions of years in the making. A grand story all scientists, museums and tourists can get behind,” Mr Hocknull added.
