‘Exceptionally uncommon’: Australian scientists discover 17 dinosaur enamel in Queensland | Queensland

Scientists have unearthed 17 enamel from an enormous herbivorous dinosaur that roamed Queensland thousands and thousands of years in the past in an “exceptionally uncommon” Australian discover.

The enamel had been found close to the western Queensland city of Winton, which palaeontologists imagine was on the fringe of an inland ocean round 96 million years in the past.

A number of partial sauropod skeletons have beforehand been unearthed from the fossil hotspot however cranial stays, together with enamel, stay uncommon.

The Winton-based Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Pure Historical past first found a dozen sauropod enamel among the many scattered fossilised stays in 2019.

A second excavation uncovered one other 5 enamel, bringing the full discover to 17.

The fossils are nonetheless being examined, however preliminary outcomes point out the enamel belonged to a sauropod that consumed vegetation from a peak of 1 to 10 metres.

The plant-eating sauropod diamantinasaurus was one of many largest animals ever to stroll the earth.

Dr Stephen Poropat from Melbourne’s Swinburne College of Expertise stated the invention might reveal new particulars about sauropod diets.

Scientists beforehand thought sauropods couldn’t chew and swallowed stones to grind up meals of their stomachs.

They assumed long-necked dinosaurs used peg-like enamel to rake and slice leaves off timber.

However coarse scratches on the 17 enamel recommend the diamantinasaurus could have chewed tougher meals.

“The comparatively strong enamel of diamantinasaurian sauropods would have enabled them to acquire elements of crops that had been comparatively hardy, conifer cones for instance,” Poropat stated.

“The invention is doubly important as sauropod dinosaur enamel are exceptionally uncommon in Australia, regardless of being comparatively generally preserved parts in Jurassic-Cretaceous deposits elsewhere.”