Anyone who arrives in Winton after an hour-long drive through Australia’s outback is greeted by a sign that reads in large letters: “Winton – Way Out West”. In fact, few places in Australia are more remote than the small town of Winton in western Queensland.
It is 1,300 kilometers from here to Brisbane, the state capital. It takes about 15 hours by car. Although Winton was even the birthplace of the Australian airline Qantas over 100 years ago, only around 1000 people now live there.
A farmer made the discovery
Until a few years ago, only a few tourists got lost in the lonely region, where the thermometer climbs to 40 degrees and more in summer. But Winton wasn’t always hot and dry. Where red sand and barren bushland dominate the landscape today, there was a huge inland sea surrounded by swamps in the Cretaceous period – around 95 million years ago.
Various species of dinosaurs roamed this landscape, as came to light in 1999. Back then, while surveying cattle, a farmer came across a massive leg cook that could only belong to one of the giant reptiles.
Despite the size of the bone, think of it as a bit like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. Such a find is a real stroke of luck simply because of the sheer size of Australia and the numerous remote and inhospitable regions of the fifth continent.
End the knowledge gap
Dinosaur fossils have been found extremely rarely in Australia well into the 21st century, confirmed Matt Herne, curator at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton. The island continent has long been considered a kind of “gap of knowledge” for paleontologists.
Australian paleontologists therefore often went abroad for research. But now more and more fossils are being found. Some media have already spoken of a “dinosaur boom”. Curator Herne even found that fossils are now simply found “everywhere” – “bloody everywhere”, as he said in Australian slang in an interview with the news medium News.com.au.
The New York Times recently took a closer look at Winton. A visit that should only increase the rush to the tranquil place in the outback.
David Elliott, the farmer who started this boom with his find in 1999, was initially unsure how to deal with the fossilized giant bone. Because the other farmers in the area reacted rather nervously to his discovery. Many were concerned that if more dinosaur bones turned up, their property could be confiscated.
Place of pilgrimage for paleontologists
But Elliott was undeterred. He contacted a paleontologist and it turned out that the massive find was the fossilized femur of a sauropod that roamed Australia about 95 million years ago. “We were kind of a test case for the region – no one else had come forward,” Elliott, 66, told the New York Times.
Since Elliott sparked interest in the colossal creatures and created the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in his hometown of Winton, a place of pilgrimage for amateur paleontologists and professional scientists alike, a number of other exciting fossils have surfaced.
Among them is the skeleton of the largest Australian dinosaur to date – Australotitan cooperensis, also known as “Southern Titan” – discovered in 2007 in Coopers Creek. “Cooper,” as Australians affectionately call him, was discovered by locals in 2006 on their property west of Eromanga, about a seven-hour drive south of Winton.
From Antarctica to Australia
Only in April did it become known that researchers also found a sauropod skull. The near-complete skull of a dinosaur nicknamed “Ann” was unearthed at Elderslie Station near Winton in 2018. Diamantinasaurus belongs to the Sauropoda dinosaur group, known for their small heads, long necks and tails, barrel-shaped bodies, and four columnar legs.
The fossilized skull fragments are 98 to 95 million years old. Similarities between the unearthed skull and a titanosaur living in South America also supported the theory that sauropods used Antarctica as a route to Australia.
Australia offers exciting terrain for the discovery of new dinosaurs, crocodiles, pterosaurs, mammals, birds and other dinosaur-era reptiles.
Matt Herne, curator at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum
Previously, sauropod teeth and a new pterosaur had been found in the same area. The fossilized bones of this flying reptile were recovered from cattle ranches in Boulia and Winton, about 355 kilometers apart.
Participate in excavations
The dinosaur boom has now attracted thousands of visitors to the region, which now enjoys a thriving tourism industry. Dinosaur fans and amateur paleontologists now pay up to 3,700 Australian dollars per person (the equivalent of over 2,300 euros) to take part in week-long paleontological excavations.
Many vacationers stop in Winton to visit Farmer Elliott’s Dinosaur Museum. In 2021 it is said to have attracted 60,000 visitors to Winton.
“It’s gotten absolutely crazy,” Kev Fawcett, the owner of the Winton Hotel, told the New York Times. In the winter season it is now so crowded that tourists sleep in their cars and there are no vacancies or rooms in any of Winton’s three caravan parks and four motels.
Elliott is confident his museum will become “a major international tourist attraction for Australia,” he wrote in an email. This would then also “contribute to the regional stability of the outback communities”.
Return of the explorers
In the meantime, even some Australian paleontologists who had previously emigrated to other countries are returning. More dinosaur fossils had been discovered there in the past. But now the researchers are continuing their careers in their old homeland.
Phil Bell, for example, who is now a researcher at the University of New England in Australia, has returned from Canada to study Australian dinosaurs. He’s now working on new fossils unearthed near Lightning Ridge in outback New South Wales.
Matt Herne, the museum’s curator, also previously lived in Canada before the new discoveries lured him back home. Thanks to the new discoveries, he hopes to gain a new scientific understanding of the former supercontinent Gondwana, which also included today’s Australia.
The researcher expects further sensational finds: “Australia offers exciting terrain for the discovery of new dinosaurs, crocodiles, pterosaurs, mammals, birds and other reptiles from the time of the dinosaurs,” Herne told the AIO Information.
Paleontologists have so far “only scratched the surface of the discoveries” given the enormous size of the Australian outback. Australian universities such as the University of Queensland and the University of New England are now even attracting international students to the country for these reasons. 20 years ago, says Herne, this was unthinkable.
