Prehistoric treasures waltz out of billabong

4th July 2009

WINTON: Meet Banjo, Matilda and Clancy - the first large Australian dinosaurs to be discovered in almost three decades.

Three new species of Australian dinosaur have been discovered by scientists and volunteers in a prehistoric billabong in Central Queensland.

Premier Anna Bligh announced the discovery in Winton yesterday as she opened the first stage of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History.

The dinosaurs have been nicknamed after characters created by poet Banjo Paterson, who is said to have written Waltzing Matilda in Winton in 1885.

Banjo (carnivorous theropod), Matilda and Clancy (giant plant-eating sauropods) were found in a vast geological deposit near Winton that dates from 98 million years ago.

They were unearthed during government-funded joint Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum and Queensland Museum digs.

The meat-eating Australovenator wintonensis (Banjo) has been coined Australia's answer to the velociraptor, made famous in the Jurassic Park movies.

The two plant-eating, four-legged sauropod species are new types of titanosaurs - the largest animals ever to walk the earth.

“These discoveries are a major breakthrough in the scientific understanding of prehistoric life in Australia,” Ms Bligh said.

Queensland Museum researcher Scott Hucknull, who led the project and has published a scientific paper on it, said there were more dinosaurs to be discovered.

“Many hundreds more fossils from this dig await preparation and there is much more material left to excavate,” he said.

Museum Victoria palaeontologist Dr John Long said the find also solved a three-decades-old debate over Victoria's Allosaurus.

“It now appears to be an Australovenator,” he said.

The Winton museum will eventually house the world's largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils when it is completed in 2015.

The centre, has been a collaborative effort supported by $500,000 Queensland Government's Q150 Legacy Infrastructure funding, $500,000 from Winton Shire Council, $42,000 from Desert Channels Queensland and $58,000 from the Australian Age of Dinosaurs.

Ms Bligh said the centre was an important milestone in the development of a world-class Australian natural history museum in a magnificent outback setting, which would also provide an economic boost to the area.

“The construction of this facility supported 14 jobs and will support three full time jobs in operation,” she said.