The discovery, announced in the journal Naturwissenschaften, adds to the
picture about dinosaurs in eastern Gondwana, the continent which broke into
Australia, Antarctica and India between 80 and 130 million years ago.
“It had been thought that isolation played a lead role in the formation
of Australia’s dinosaur fauna,” said Fitzgerald, a Museum Victoria
palaeontologist.
“But the ceratosaur and other new discoveries show that several dinosaur
groups were here. These dinosaur lineages date back to the Jurassic, 170
million years ago, when dinosaurs could walk between any two continents.
“Until now, this group of dinosaurs has been strangely absent from
Australia, but now at last we know they were here – confirming their global
distribution.”
He added the ankle bone, found near the coastal town of San Remo by an amateur
palaeontologist in 2006, was only 2.4 inches wide but was of great
significance in understanding dinosaurs in Australia.
“Apart from Antarctica, Australia has the world’s most poorly-known
dinosaur record,” he said, adding that even “tantalising fragments”
can end up providing researchers with a wealth of information.
Source: AFP
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