A Monash University expert is available to comment on a dinosaur fossil discovery at Inverloch, on the Bass Coast south-east of Melbourne.
Available to comment:
Dr Jake Kotevski, School of Biological Sciences, Monash University Faculty of Science
Contact: +61 3 9903 4840 or media@monash.edu
The following comments can be attributed to Dr Kotevski:
“The team of volunteers from the Dinosaur Dreaming project have recovered foot bones (toes/claws) of a dinosaur or dinosaurs. The fossil(s) will now be safely transported and prepared out of the rock to better determine their shape and significance.
“Unfortunately, we won’t be able to tell what species these bones belong to until the preparation is complete. However, the most common dinosaurs we tend to find on the Bass Coast are ornithopods (small, herbivorous forms like Galleonosaurus) or large predatory theropods called Megaraptoridae. There is a good chance the newly discovered bone belongs to either of these dinosaurs. Most probably the ornithopod as they are far more commonly found in the area. But we will have to wait and see when preparation is complete.
“Fossils from the Bass Coast derive from the upper Strzelecki Group, which is between 118 and 121.4 million years old.
“Although we don’t yet know what the specimen is, every find is important. Many of our dinosaur remains are isolated and fragmentary, and so each find adds a new piece to the ongoing jigsaw puzzle. These finds have every chance to plug a gap in our knowledge on the anatomy of these dinosaurs, whatever they may be.”
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