Tracking Australia's gigantic carnivorous dinosaurs

Date:
June 17, 2020
Source:
University of Queensland
Summary:
North America had the T. rex, South America had the Giganotosaurus
and Africa the Spinosaurus - now evidence shows Australia had
gigantic predatory dinosaurs.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== North America had the T. rex, South America had the Giganotosaurus and
Africa the Spinosaurus -- now evidence shows Australia had gigantic
predatory dinosaurs.


==========================================================================
The discovery came in University of Queensland research, led by
palaeontologist Dr Anthony Romilio, which analysed southern Queensland
dinosaur footprint fossils dated to the latter part of the Jurassic
Period, between 165 and 151 million-year-ago.

"I've always wondered, where were Australia's big carnivorous
dinosaurs?" Dr Romilio said.

"But I think we've found them, right here in Queensland.

"The specimens of these gigantic dinosaurs were not fossilised bones,
which are the sorts of things that are typically housed at museums.

"Rather, we looked at footprints, which -- in Australia -- are much
more abundant.



========================================================================== "These tracks were made by dinosaurs walking through the swamp-forests
that once occupied much of the landscape of what is now southern
Queensland." Most of the tracks used in the study belong to theropods,
the same group of dinosaurs that includes Australovenator, Velociraptor,
and their modern-day descendants, birds.

Dr Romilio said these were clearly not bird tracks.

"Most of these footprints are around 50 to 60 centimetres in length, with
some of the really huge tracks measuring nearly 80 centimetres," he said.

"We estimate these tracks were made by large-bodied carnivorous dinosaurs,
some of which were up to three metres high at the hips and probably
around 10 metres long.



==========================================================================
"To put that into perspective, T. rex got to about 3.25 metres at the
hips and attained lengths of 12 to 13 metres long, but it didn't appear
until 90 million years after our Queensland giants.

"The Queensland tracks were probably made by giant carnosaurs -- the
group that includes the Allosaurus.

"At the time, these were probably some of the largest predatory dinosaurs
on the planet." Despite the study providing important new insights into Australia's natural heritage, the fossils are not a recent discovery.

"The tracks have been known for more than half a century," Dr Romilio
said.

"They were discovered in the ceilings of underground coal mines from
Rosewood near Ipswich, and Oakey just north of Toowoomba, back in the
1950s and 1960s.

"Most hadn't been scientifically described, and were left for decades
in museum drawers waiting to be re-discovered.

"Finding these fossils has been our way of tracking down the creatures
from Australia's Jurassic Park."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Queensland. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Anthony Romilio, Steven W. Salisbury, Andre'as Jannel. Footprints of
large theropod dinosaurs in the Middle-UpperJurassic (lower
Callovian- lower Tithonian) Walloon Coal Measures of southern
Queensland, Australia.. Historical Biology, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.1080/
08912963.2020.1772252 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200617100432.htm

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