Fossils of a massive prehistoric creature were recently unearthed as a new species of giant dinosaur was found in Australia.
The discovery was found by David Elliot who came upon the bones on his sheep station in Queensland while tending to the animals. The story goes that Elliot was guiding his flock of sheep through the Australian Outback when he spotted some bone fragments sticking out of the ground. Since he was the co-founder of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, it did not take long for Elliot to realize that this was a dinosaur fossil.
He did not notice it at first but it turns out that the dinosaur species that they discovered was quite new. And it was definitely massive, as the four-legged, long-necked creature was 40 to 50 feet long.
The scientific name for the new dinosaur is "Savannasaurus elliottorum." David Elliot nicknamed the beast, Wade, in memory of one of his friends.
What sets the Wade apart from the other long necks are a few distinguishing features. The most glaring difference is the hip size of the creature which is of an unusual size. It was also a round beast, as it had an oversized belly which probably covered an equally large digestive system. It is no different from most plant eaters in the wild today; well, only so much bigger.
The 95-million-year-old fossils is also a big help to understanding how these large animals lived in the Australian landscape. In an interview, paleontologist Stephen Poropat had this to say about Wade:
"A new dinosaur like Wade, or Savannasaurus, will allow us to work out how these dinosaurs evolved through time, how they responded to climatic changes, and also how they responded to changes in the positions of the continents as well."
Hopefully, more insight about the new species of dinosaur will come to light as soon as possible to help us understand more about these majestic creatures that ruled the lands before mankind.
