Mike Poben is an Adelaide - establish opal dealer so he is used to dealing with precious stones . But in 2013 , he stumbled upon a particularly sinful find after buy a dish of crude opal from some miners in New South Wales , Australia .
He toldNational Geographic Australia , there was one unusual slice in the collection that snaffle his attention . It turn out to be the opalized fogey of a fragment of a lower jaw bone . When he checked the bag a 2d time , he spotted another .
In 2014 , fossilist Phil Bell discover that the two shard formed the lower jaw bone of a dinosaur . And it ’s not just any old dinosaur . It is a never before see dinosaur species , now described in a study published in the journalPeerJfor the first time .
Meet the brilliantly - namedWeewarrasaurus pobeni , a extension to the position where it was notice ( the Wee Wara opal field , airless to Australian outback townsfolk Lightning Ridge ) and the man who found it ( Poben ) . It is the first dinosaur species to be discovered and call in New South Wales in almost a one C .
Despite the fact that the only clew to this dinosaur ’s existence is a single fossilized jaw bone – albeit a stunningly gaudy one – paleontologists are able to paint a remarkably elaborate impression of this animal ’s picture and modus vivendi . We make love , for example , that it is a character of dinosaur called an ornithopod dinosaur , a grouping that also countsParasaurolophuses , Iguanodons , andHadrosauridsamong its members .
Ornithopods likeW. pobeniare bipedal operative grazers . This particular coinage would have lived during the Cretaceous , been roughly the size of a labrador , and move in pocket-sized groups to avoid being attacked . grant to Bell , it had a hooter andteeth designed for vegetation .
Less is known about dinosaurs that lived inthe southerly supercontinent of Gondwanathan their relatives in North America and Eurasia – though the numeral of named Australian species is growing .
" If these fossil were in surface rock , like those found in China and Mongolia , it would be an downright treasure - treasure trove , " Bell said in astatement .
" unluckily , the fossil leftover we see are almost always part of mining despoilation , because they sit down in rock layer that lie in up to 30 metres underground . "
One thing that take a crap Australia unique is the plethora of little ornithopods , where there was less contention from great dinosaur .
" low ornithopod dinosaur had free range to bung on as much botany as they like and evolve into many different mintage , " Bell toldNational Geographic Australia .
Back then , this part of New South Wales ( now wry and dusty ) would have been an area lush with lakes , waterways , and shrubland . The climate would have been temperate , seldom dipping below 4 ° coulomb ( 39 ° F ) but due to its positioning – further to the south than it is today and as close to the South Pole as the Finnish urban center Helsinki is to the North Pole – its wintertime would have been long and black .
As for the location of this newfangled find , Bell describes it as a “ unfeignedly unique domain ” .
" There ’s no billet in the world like this , where you have dinosaur preserved in beautiful opal " , formed over a period hundreds of thousands of years from a solution of atomic number 14 dioxide and body of water .
He and his team have now begin test a number of other opalized fossil , which they believe will be described as new specie in the future .
[ H / T : The University of New England , National Geographic Australia ]
