There's a New Dinosaur Species And It's One of the World's Largest

Scientists discovered a giant new dinosaur species in Australia’s outback, and it’s already being classified as one of the largest in the world. The dinosaur has been nicknamed Cooper.

Paleontologists in Australia’s Queensland unearthed the largest dinosaur species to roam the continent, and named the species the Australotitan cooperensis. They believe it was a part of the titanosaur family that roamed earth about 100 million years ago.

Paleontologists estimate that it was 5-6.5 meters (16-21 feet) high and 25-30 meters (82-98 feet) wide, making it the size of a basketball court-sized two storey building. 

The world’s largest known titanosaur, the Patagotitan, is only four feet wider and was found in South America. 

The findings about the Australian discovery were published in the PeerJ journal using 3D scans almost 15 years after the dinosaur bones were first found. 

“The new titanosaurian is the largest dinosaur from Australia as represented by osteological remains and based on limb-size comparisons, it reached a size similar to that of the giant titanosaurians from South America,” the study said.

Robyn Mackenzie, a field paleontologist, first unearthed the dinosaur bones on a farm owned by her family in 2006, but scientists took a year to reveal this to the public.

“Such big, fragile bones literally took years to prepare and clean,” Mackenzie told The Guardian.

Mackenzie, who co-founded the Eromanga Natural History Museum, has found the remains of about 15 other dinosaur bones on her farm.  This includes a dinosaur nicknamed George, who scientists said was bigger than Cooper, but could not be effectively studied due to fragmented bones. 

Australia is considered the last frontier of finding dinosaur bones, and had a flurry of discoveries in the past two decades.

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