Australian Farmer discovers 100 Million-Year-Old Fossil

An Australian farmer has found the remains of a 100 million-year-old dinosaur on his property in Queensland state, a media report said on Tuesday. Robert Hacon discovered the 1.6 metre fossilised jaw of a ‘Kronosaurus Queenslandicus’, an 11-metre long predator that dominated Australia’s great inland sea between 110 and 115 million years ago, The Brisbane Times reported.

“I was out poisoning prickly Acacia and saw some objects shining in the distance,” Robert Hacon said. “At first glance I thought they were fossilised mussel shells so I drove away. Ten minutes later my curiosity got the better of me and I turned back.”

The Queenslandicus had a crocodile-like head, a body with four powerful flippers, jaws twice as powerful as those of a saltwater crocodile and curved teeth the size of bananas.

“I’ve been looking for something like this all my life but never thought I’d find such an amazing fossil,” Hacon said.

The first recorded Kronosaurus Queenslandicus remains were discovered near Queensland Hughenden town in 1899, though the most famous is a near-complete skeleton that resides in Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. It went on public display in 1958. (IANS)