Advanced synchrotron imaging supports Australian dinosaur research discovery

Three-dimensional imaging has become an essential tool for Australian palaeontologists to more accurately analyse and interpret the life histories and relationships between dinosaurs. 

The latest example is groundbreaking research published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology by the Museums Victoria Research Institute and Monash University that unveiled a landmark discovery – fossils of the world’s oldest known megaraptorid and the first evidence of carcharodontosaurs in Australia.

Researchers used the Imaging and Medical beamline (IMBL) at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron in their study to acquire detailed images of the fossils. 

One of the five theropod fossils discovered along Victoria’s coastline, a shin bone belonging to one of Australia’s largest known carnivorous dinosaurs, was scanned using IMBL. 

“This sample challenged the limits of the beamline’s physical capability– it needed the highest energy X-rays of the brightest X-source in the southern hemisphere to peer inside the bone,” said Dr Jospeh Bevitt, a co-author on the publication, who assisted the team with measurements.

“From this imaging study, we could peer inside the fossil and determine that this bone was from an adult megaraptorid – a real apex predator of its time”.

Dr Bevitt assists palaeontologists from across the globe with the imaging of fossils using the Neutron tomography instrument Dingo at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering, and the Imaging and Medical beamline at the Australian Synchrotron. 

DOI ttps://doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2024.2441903

Media enquiries (ANSTO): media@ansto,gov.au 

Media Information provided by the Museums Victoria Research Institute and Monash University.

These finds rewrite the evolutionary history of theropod dinosaurs, uncovering a predator hierarchy unique to Cretaceous Australia.

The research, led by Museums Victoria Research Institute and Monash University PhD student Jake Kotevski, describes five theropod fossils discovered along Victoria’s coastline. The fossils were unearthed in the upper Strzelecki Group (Bunurong/Boonwurrung Country, Bass Coast, approximately 121.4-118 million years ago) and the Eumeralla Formation (Eastern Marr Country, Otway Coast, approximately 113-108 million years ago).

These fossils offer new insights into Victoria’s ancient ecosystem, which was dominated by large powerful megaraptorids (6–7 metres long) alongside smaller carcharodontosaurs (2–4 metres long) and agile, metre-long unenlagiines, or ‘southern raptors’.

‘The discovery of carcharodontosaurs in Australia is groundbreaking,’ says Kotevski. ‘It’s fascinating to see how Victoria’s predator hierarchy diverged from South America, where carcharodontosaurs reached Tyrannosaurus rex-like sizes up to 13 metres, towering over megaraptorids. Here, the roles were reversed, highlighting the uniqueness of Australia’s Cretaceous ecosystem.’

Two of the fossils represent the oldest known megaraptorids globally, expanding our understanding of the group’s evolutionary history and suggesting Australia’s theropod fauna played a pivotal role in Gondwanan ecosystems.

Dr Thomas Rich, senior curator of vertebrate palaeontology at Museums Victoria Research Institute, explains, ‘The findings not only expand Australia’s theropod fossil record but offer compelling evidence of faunal interchange between Australia and South America through Antarctica during the Early Cretaceous. The findings also challenge previous assumptions about body-size hierarchies in Gondwanan predator ecosystems highlighting Victoria’s unique Cretaceous fauna.’

Media enquiries (Museums Victoria) please contact:  

Thomas Holloway, Senior Media and Communications Officer, Museums Victoria

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