New dinosaurs found in Queensland

The three new species of Australian dinosaur were found by scientists and volunteers in a prehistoric billabong in western Queensland.

Premier Anna Bligh announced the discovery in the central western town of Winton on Friday as she opened the first stage of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History.

The dinosaurs have been nicknamed after characters created by poet Banjo Paterson, who is said to have written Waltzing Matilda in Winton in 1885.

Banjo (carnivorous theropod), Matilda and Clancy (giant plant-eating sauropods) were found in a vast geological deposit near Winton that dates back 98 million years.

Australian 'velociraptor'

They were unearthed during government-funded joint Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum and Queensland Museum digs.

The meat-eating Australovenator wintonensis (Banjo) has been coined Australia's answer to the velociraptor, made famous in the Jurassic Park movies.

The two plant-eating, four-legged sauropod species are new types of titanosaurs - the largest animals ever to walk the earth.

"These discoveries are a major breakthrough in the scientific understanding of prehistoric life in Australia," Ms Bligh said.

More dinosaurs to be found

Queensland Museum researcher Scott Hucknull, who led the project and has published a scientific paper on it, said there were more dinosaurs to be discovered.

"Many hundreds more fossils from this dig await preparation and there is much more material left to excavate," he said.

Museum of Victoria palaeontologist Dr John Long said the find also solved a three-decades-old debate over Victoria's Allosaurus.

"It now appears to be an Australovenator," he said.

The Winton museum will eventually house the world's largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils when it is completed in 2015.