Australian dinosaur fossils found to have link to South America!
He said it was the first time a dinosaur with unquestionable affinities to animals from other Southern Hemisphere continents had been recognised in Australia.
“Throughout much of the Age of Dinosaurs, Australia formed part of the southern super-continent of Gondwana,” Dr Salisbury said.
“As a result, there has long been an expectation that our dinosaur fauna would show similarities to similarly aged faunas from adjoining Gondwanan landmasses, in particular Antarctica, New Zealand and South America.
“Of the Australian dinosaurs that have been recognised so far, the consensus has been that some are relics of groups that went extinct much earlier in other parts of the world, while others have been seen as early representatives of groups that are more typical of the Northern Hemisphere.
“Partly as a result, it has been proposed that Australia was somehow isolated from the rest of Gondwana, either through geographic or climatic barriers.
Dr Federico Angolin, from the Argentinean Museum of Natural Sciences, said when the six palaeontologists on the research team independently recognised the close similarity between the Dinosaur Cove fossil and the remains of Megaraptor from Argentina, they knew they had an important discovery on their hands.
“Megaraptor is a unusual type medium-sized theropod, best known for its enormous clawed hands,” Dr Federico Angolin said.
“The proportionately large hand means that Megaraptor has a very distinctive forearm, which is how we were able to identify the Australian fossil.
Project leader Nate Smith, from The Field Museum in Chicago, said fossils of Megaraptor have previously only been found in central and southern Patagonia, in rocks at least 15 million years younger than those in southern Victoria.