![]() It took over a decade to identify Cooper because of the bones' remote location, fragile condition, and massive size that at times require a forklift to move, the Guardian reports. Before Cooper, titanosaurs were previously only discovered in South America, reports Australia's ABC News. It is estimated that Cooper weighed 70 tons, stood at two stories tall, and measured 82 to 98 feet in length-or about the size of a basketball court, the New York Times reports.Ĭooper's appearance is similar to other familiar long-necked sauropods, Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus. While other titanosaur species were found in Australia before, Cooper is significantly larger. They were some of the largest dinosaurs that ever existed. Titanosaurs are long-necked herbaceous sauropod dinosaurs that walked the Earth from the late Jurassic Epoch to the end of the Cretaceous period. Researchers found its shoulder blades, pelvic bones, and limbs mostly intact, reports Donna Lu for the Guardian. Nicknamed Cooper, the titanosaur's bones were unearthed near Cooper Creek at the Eromanga Basin in southwest Queensland. The study was published this week in PeerJ - the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences. ![]() The dinosaur is the largest ever found in Australia and one of the largest in the world. Now, after over a decade of excavation and analyzing the enormous bones, researchers at the Queensland Museum and Eromanga Natural History Museum classified the fossil remains as a new species, Australotitan cooperensis, or "the southern titan," belonging to the genus titanosaur. But upon closer inspection, they realized the rocks were bones. ![]() ![]() In 2006, Robyn and Stuart Mackenzie spotted what appeared to be massive black rocks while riding motorbikes on their sheep and cattle farm in Australia, reports Jennifer Jet for the New York Times. ![]()
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