Australian dinosaur

Just when I forget how magnificent my homeland is, reminders pop up. And this one’s grand.

Via the Off Track program on my ABC Listen app, I tuned into a story from another program, Days Like These. It shares the incredible discovery by Mike Poben of two jaw bones inadvertently collected by fossickers in Lightning Ridge, NSW, an outback town famous for its opals and naturally occurring mineral springs.

Mike was in town prospecting for opals and bought a couple of bags of bits and bobs from the fossickers. In each was a piece of jaw bone from the same prehistoric animal! Isn’t that jaw-dropping? Enter palaeontologist Dr Phil Bell and the eventual discovery of what’s been dubbed the weewarrasauras pobeni, a distinctly Australian dinosaur, found nowhere else on Earth.

Sometimes words fail us, and that’s appropriate. Have a listen to the full story. Duration: 26 min 29 sec.

Happy new year!