Farmer stumbles across a brand new 'bus
About 95 million years ago, a bus-size and scaly-skinned sauropod dinosaur with a long tail and even longer neck lumbered across what is now Queensland, Australia, a new study finds.
The hulking, 50-foot-long (15 metres) palaeo-beast likely weighed up to 22 tons (20 tonnes) and sported hips that didn't quit, at a girth of some 5 feet (1.5 metres) across.
SEE ALSO:One man's dinosaur impressions will save you a trip to 'Jurassic Park'The dinosaur likely ate supersize meals, using its large digestive system to extract nutrients from all kinds of plants, even tough ones, said the study's lead researcher Stephen Poropat, a palaeontologist and research associate at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History in Queensland, Australia.
The newly identified species of sauropod is one of the most complete sauropod skeletons ever found in Australia, Poropat said. It's named Savannasaurus elliottorum, for the savannah where it was found and for David Elliott, the first person to find dinosaur bones at the site.
Wade's neck was likely longer than its tail, the researchers said.Credit: Travis Tischler / Copyright Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural HistoryThe palaeontologists also found the first partial sauropod skull on record from Australia. The skull belonged to Diamantinasaurus matildae, Poropat said. The finding is unusual, as palaeontologists typically unearth headless sauropods. "To have had the privilege of describing the first sauropod braincase ever found in Australia has been very humbling," Poropat told Live Sciencein an email.
He explained that sauropod heads are an unusual find because "the bones of the skull were not solidly fused together, meaning that sauropod skulls had a tendency to 'explode' once their owners had died, and they also seem to have detached quite easily from sauropod necks -- perhaps (carnivorous bipedal) theropods liked to eat them."
Ho-Hum excavation
One day in 2005, Elliott, who had previously founded the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum with his wife, Judy, was tending to his sheep when he noticed a few fossils on the ground on his property in Queensland. At first, Elliott thought two of the bones belonged to a theropod dinosaur. But Judy found otherwise when she clicked the two end pieces together, revealing that the fossils were actually the toe bone of a sauropod, Poropat said.
Curious to learn more, David, Judy and a team from the Queensland Museum returned to the area -- nicknamed the Ho-Hum site -- later that year. "What they found was stunning: a huge siltstone concretion, filled with dinosaur bones," Poropat said. "It was too big to be extracted whole, so they decided to break it up into hundreds of smaller, more manageable pieces."
A photo from 2005 showing the site where Savannasaurus elliottorum, the dinosaur nicknamed Wade, was discovered in Queensland, Australia.Credit: David and Judy Elliott, Australian Age of DinosaursIt took nearly 10 years for palaeontologists to fully prepare the bones, but it was well worth the effort, Poropat said.
The newfound sauropod, dubbed Wade, would have stood almost 10 feet (3 metres) tall at its shoulders, and walked on all fours, equipped with five toes on each foot. But "the most distinctive feature of Savannasaurus was its breadth -- across the hips it would have been no narrower than 1.5 metres (nearly 5 feet), and it would have been almost as wide across the shoulders, as well," Poropat said.
Family tree
Both S.elliottorumand D.matildaeare closely related to titanosaurs, whose bones have been found in South America and Asia. However, little is known about when sauropods made it to Australia, Poropat said. According to an anatomical analysis, S.elliottorumand D.matildae's ancestors hailed from South America, Poropat said.
He and his colleagues suspect that the sauropod's ancestors likely trudged from there to Australia via Antarctica, which was connected to both continents during the Cretaceous Period, Poropat said."It is likely that titanosaurs were not able to enter Australia until approximately 105 million years ago, because cool (but not freezing) conditions prevailed in Antarctica from approximately 120 (million to) 105 million years ago," Poropat said. "Although they might have been 'warm-blooded,' sauropods had long necks and tails through which they might have lost a lot of heat when the weather was cold." The study was published online on Oct. 20 in the journal Scientific Reports.
下一篇:Understanding Relational vs. Non
- ·Doosan scraps controversial Robotics
- ·党建共建绿美广东 华南农业大学生命科学学院与潮州凤凰山保护区共同推进产学研深度融合
- ·“等待经济”蕴含大商机
- ·广州援疆医疗团队重点派驻项目启动调查,助力疏附县提升公共卫生应急处置能力
- ·CrowdStrike outage is still causing hundreds of flight cancellations daily
- ·华南农业大学特派员团队为荔枝种植合作社提供科技服务
- ·雨城区检察院确立性侵未成年被害人一站式保护体系
- ·市公安局交警支队:开学季多举措护航学生交通安全
- ·What Ever Happened to Flickr?
- ·开展健康检查助力脱贫攻坚
- ·坚持把深化医改作为 重大民生工程和改革任务
- ·歌曲MV|《菜心 心连心》
- ·New Grok response directs users to Vote.gov for election questions
- ·硗碛原生态多声部民歌唱响四川大型成就展雅安馆
- ·美式汤圆冲上热搜,网红奇葩饮品你喝过哪款?
- ·雅安交建集团召开“依法治企”专题学习会
- ·[LLG] When compassion meets law: Lawyer defends goats, dogs, other helpless animals
- ·依法执行获赠锦旗 感恩信任坚守初心
- ·橄榄,潮州春节里的甘甜滋味
- ·雅安:“两病”患者门诊用药不设起付线
- ·评论丨农事运动会:一场农民的盛会、新农人风采展现的盛会、城乡双向奔赴的盛会
- ·中国东方广东省分公司“造血式”帮扶打通英德黎溪镇产业动脉
- ·坚持把深化医改作为 重大民生工程和改革任务
- ·美式汤圆冲上热搜,网红奇葩饮品你喝过哪款?
- ·Webb telescope discovers 6 rogue worlds. They didn't form the way you'd expect.
- ·又一突破!我国首次实现黄鳍金枪鱼人工产卵