July 3, 2009 Aussie dinosaur 'Australovenator' discovered Play video

(NECN/APTN: Brisbane, Queensland) - Scientists have confirmed for the first time that Australia was once home to a dinosaur that was big, fast and terrifying, the Australovenator.

It was a 1,100 pound meat-eating predator with three slashing claws on each of its powerful forelimbs, and it stalked the Outback 98 million years ago, researchers said in a report published on Friday.

Fossilised remnants of its limb bones, ribs, jaw and fangs were found along with bones of two newly discovered species of long-necked herbivore dinosaurs, each weighing up to 17 and 22 tons, in Queensland state over the past 30 years.

The bones of all three beasts are on display at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Brisbane.

Museum Chairman David Elliott said the discovery of three new Australian dinosaurs was "out of this world."

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the site where the bones were discovered was now at the "top of the radar for scientists right around the world."

The discovery, analysed in a 51-page report published in the peer-reviewed online science journal PLoS ONE, was the first substantial find of large dinosaurs in Australia to be revealed in 28 years.

The finders nicknamed the 16-foot long carnivore "Banjo," after the poet A.B. "Banjo" Paterson who in 1885 penned Australia's unofficial anthem "Waltzing Matilda" on a sheep ranch near Winton, a cattle town that lies closest to where the dinosaur bones were found.

Banjo

has been called Australia's answer to the Velociraptor, referring to the turkey-sized prehistoric predators recreated with artistic license in the "Jurassic Park" movies.

The two gigantic the 52-foot long herbivores, named Witonottitan wattsi and Diamantinasaurus matildae, were until now unknown types of titanosaur, the largest dinosaurs that ever lived. All three lived in the mid-Cretaceous period which extended from 145 million years to 65 million years ago.

Material courtesy of APTN.