A new species of dinosaur has been discovered in Australia and it is believed to be one of the largest that walked the Earth.
The bones of the sauropod herbivore were found by cattle farmers more than 10 years ago, but were recently determined to be those of a new species.
The team of scientists that studied the bones said the dinosaur lived during the Cretaceous period, about 92 million to 96 million years ago.
They believe the dinosaur was 5 meters to 6.5 meters at the hip or about 16 feet to 21 feet high.
The length is estimated at between 25 meters and 30 meters or 82 feet to 98 feet long.
It weighed about 70 tons, CBS News reported.
Imagine a basketball-court-long dinosaur lumbering about the planet.
This is Australotitan cooperensis, nicknamed "Cooper."
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 8, 2021
It was a long-necked, plant-eating titanosaur that lived more than 90 million years ago – and it was the length of a basketball court. https://t.co/P2SDL1gI7q
It was the largest found in Australia, and among the 10 to 15 largest in the world, CBS News reported.
Reuters said it could be among the top five largest.
The species has been named “Australotitan cooperensis” that mashes up “southern titan” and the name of a creek that was near where the bones were found in 2006 in Queensland in what is now determined as a potential sauropod pathway, Reuters reported.
It’s nickname is “Cooper,” named after Cooper Creek, CBS News reported.
Scientists from Eromanga Natural History Museum and the Queensland Museum made 3-D scans of the bones to be able to study them and compare them to other examples of Australotitans.
The findings were published in the journal PeerJ this week, CBS News reported.
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