Ratings: CP ** Surroundings ****
Vast and ancient landscapes of the Outback ....how small we seem! Amazing to think that around 100 million years ago, this was an inland sea surrounded by forests of enormous trees and dinosaurs roaming the land. We visited the Australian Age of Dinosaurs near Winton and learnt about Banjo, a carnivorous theropod and Matilda, a giant plant-eating sauropod.
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No, I wasn't putting my arm down Banjo's throat....merely patting him! He is Winton's most famous dinosaur and is the largest predatory animal ever discovered in Australia. All the animals displayed at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs lived around 100 million years ago and we were fortunate to have enthusiastic young paleontologists providing us with information about the dinosaurs and taking us on a tour of the laboratory and collection centre.
Banjo's remains were discovered in this area and after the difficult and painstaking work involved in excavating, storing, preserving, retrieving and piecing together bones, these specimens are on display for visitors to see.
Matilda's larger and heavier bones were discovered next to Banjo's and theories abound of how this happened as Matilda was a sauropod (a plant eating dinosaur) weighing about 25 tons.
These are fossils of dinosaur bones which have been excavated in the Winton area and stored until the scientists can start working with them. There are currently 63 excavating sites in this area. The scientists say that they have at least 15 years of work due to the large number of fossils being uncovered from the digging sites.
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