The rediscovering of Australia's first cretaceous dinosaur

[ChubbyTaco]

More fossils of the very first Cretaceous dinosaur to be described from Australia have been excavated over the winter months and scientists could be on the verge of solving a mystery surrounding whether the Titanosaur named Austrosaurus mckillopi deserves to be a valid genus or not. Scientists have estimated that this dinosaur may have reached lengths in excess of fifteen metres .A number of pinkish-white bones were excavated, including some very well preserved rib bones, the largest of which measure 1.6 metres in length.

[VD231991]

The re-assessment of Austrosaurus based on new remains discovered at the type locality of A. mckillopi has been published by Poropat et al. (2017), who find diagnostic characters in the holotype of this taxon and assign Austrosaurus to Somphospondyli. I read that Wintonotitan was once referred to Austrosaurus before being considered a new genus and species in its own right.

Poropat, S.F., Nair, J.P., Syme, C.E., Mannion, P.D., Upchurch, P., Hocknull, S.A., Cook, A.G., Tischler, T.R., and Holland, T., 2017. Reappraisal of Austrosaurus mckillopi Longman, 1933 from the Allaru Mudstone of Queensland, Australia's first named Cretaceous sauropod dinosaur. Alcheringa 41 (4): 543–580. doi:10.1080/03115518.2017.1334826. hdl:10044/1/48659.