Australian dinosaur has Argentinean cousins: 12-06-2008
Travellers to Australia could be walking in the footsteps of South American dinosaurs, scientists have revealed.
A hundred-million-year-old fossil belonging to a dinosaur closely related to the Argentinian Megaraptor namunhuaiquii found in Australia has forced a rethink of both dinosaur migration and continental movement.
The find suggests that dinosaurs were capable of traversing the massive prehistoric continent of Gondwana, according to Nathan Smith of the University of Chicago's Field Museum.
Gondwana was formed of the Southern Hemisphere's great landmasses, which over time broke up to form their current state, but the dating of this fossil means that the shift must have happened later than was previously thought.
The bone was discovered in 1989 in south-eastern Australia and Mr Smith says it has features solidly linked to its Latin American cousin.
"Megaraptor has a huge hand with a big [clublike] claw and a very strange forearm, so if you had to pick one bone to refer to, then the ulna [arm bone] might be that bone," he said.
Scientists had previously thought dinosaurs on the Australian part of Gondwana were isolated from the other landmasses due to climate and geography.