The NY Times has a story about a new titanosaur. It's named, Savannasaurus elliottorum, after the family that found it on their farm in Queensland, Australia back in 2005. Titanosaurs are sauropods, which were the long necked plant-eating dinosaurs. Other well known examples include Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus, and Brontosaurus. Savannasaurus lived about 95 million years ago. It weighed about 22 tons and was more than 40 feet long.
The original paper appeared in Nature's Scientific Reports.
David Elliott was herding sheep on his motorbike in Queensland, Australia, in 2005 when he came across a pile of fossilized dinosaur bones. He, his wife Judy and their children began piecing together tailbones, toe bones and bits of limbs.
Now, 11 years later, paleontologists have confirmed that the fragments the family collected belong to a new species of titanosaur, a long-necked behemoth that roamed the area about 95 million years ago.
Its official name, fittingly, is Savannasaurus elliottorum. But to the Elliotts, it’s “Wade.”
Paleontologists at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, where Mr. Elliott is the executive chairman, said Wade was one of Australia’s most complete sauropods, the dinosaur family that includes titanosaurs. The researchers believe the findings may provide insight into why these massive animals migrated from present-day South America into present-day Australia and Antarctica, back when the three were connected as a part of the landmass Gondwana.
