It is always an exciting event in Paleontology when a new discovery is made by hard working scientists or by adventurers who accidently find them
This time it is a renowned scientist, David Eliott, co-founder of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, who made the finds. The discovered skeletal remains were excavated after years of patient digging within a singular siltstone in the Winton Formation, geologically dated at 95 million years old.
The concretion surrounding the bones were meticulously removed and revealed an almost complete specimen of Cretaceous sauropod bones ever discovered. What is more revealing is the fact that the skeletons belonged to a new species and genus of dinosaur.
The dinosaur, named Salvannasaurus elliottorum after David Eliott, once lived in an environment very much warmer than what it is today. The polar temperature in the dinosaur's time, 95 million years ago, was disruptive and limited the movement of sauropods.
According to scientists, the dinosaur is suspected to have come from South America and migrated to Australia 105 million years ago. It was a time when global temperatures were much higher to allow sauropods to travel along polar latitudes.
Around 95 million years ago, at the time that Savannasaurus elliottorum was alive, global average temperatures were warmer than they are today. However, it was quite cool at the poles at certain times, which seems to have restricted the movement of sauropods at polar latitudes.
The paleontologists suspect that Savannasaurus elliottorum's ancestor was from South America, but that it could not and did not enter Australia until 105 million years ago. At this time global average temperatures increased allowing sauropods to traverse landmasses at polar latitudes
The dinosaur is about 45 feet long, had very long neck, wide body, stocky feet each with 5 toes and a prominently short tail.
David Eliott said that he discovered the fossils accidentally while herding sheep in Australia.
