Scientists have found a new species of long-necked Dinosaurs in North Eastern Australia and could have come from South America 105 million years ago. Labelled as Savannasaurus elliottorum, it belongs to a branch of the sauropods also known as titanosaurs and could be the largest animal to have moved on the Earth.
The scientists could recover only 20% to 25% of the gargantuan beast, and this includes parts belonging to its torso, limbs and the pelvis. The animal was huge, so it took a lot of sediments to cover it before it was devoured by predators. Excavators were also able to recover teeth of the carnivorous dinosaurs from the site which suggests that it could have been scavenging the remains of the Savannasaurus
The first fossil of this huge animal was first discovered in 2005 by a grazier. Soon the AAOD and the Queensland Museum started digging up the fossil site, but it took almost ten years before they could separate the bones from the rocks in which it was embedded.
Another dinosaur Diamantinasaurus matildae, whose excavation led to the discovery of the first skull of a sauropod in the country, However, the discovery of both these fossils has sparked a hot debate about the origin of the titanosaurs in Australia.
Studies earlier suggested that the fossils were similar to dinosaurs from Laurasia. Laurasia is the super continental land mass and was located in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the latest discovery hints that this theory is erroneous and Laurasia and Gondwana which later led to the formation of land mass in the Southern Hemisphere, South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica were separated.
The discovery clearly shows that Savannasaurus and the Diamantinasaurus originated and came from South America some 105 million years ago. The temperatures were warmer, and they must have come from Antartica when the three contents were joined.
