Where to find Dinosaurs in New South Wales

Posted on July 31, 2021 by Brian Kelly | 1 comment

 

The  Dinosaur Exhibition at the Australia Museum in Sydney

The Australia Musuem in Sydney has a small Dinosaur Exhibition. The Exhibition includes:

Jobaria tiguiddenisis

A plant big eating sauropod found in Africa, it has a very long neck and long tail.

  

 Muttaburrasaurus

A model of the very famous Australian Muttaburrasaurus. A plant eating dinosaur from the early Cretaceous period (112-100 million years ago) is named after the town in Queensland where it was discovered. Interestingly it walked on its two hind legs and had a huge bulb on the end of its skull probably a resonating chamber for making calls.

 A model of the Mini paravertebra, an armoured plant eating eating dinosaur. It had hard ridged scales along the length of its body providing a good defence against predators.

Minmi paravertebra

 

Not currently open but could return late 2021 or early 2022 

Scenic World's Dinosaur Valley in the Blue Mountains (closed 28/2/21)

Walk in Scenic World's rainforest and see the dinosaurs, with kids trail guides.

 

Mega Creatures in the Hunter Valley Gardens (re-opening 2922)

In the Hunter Valley Gardens at Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley sometimes you'll find the Mega Creatures. They are expected back in 2022 and include amongst other creatures, dinosaurs. Possibly a T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and Spinosaurus model.

  

The Australian Reptile Park's Jurassic Zoo (possibly again in Summer holidays 2021)

Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Raptor visited the Reptile Park in the last summer school holidays and there was a pretend dino dig too. 

 

Fossil Sites in NSW

If you are visiting a fossil site, please make sure you observe local state and federal laws regarding fossils and fossil hunting. Also take care as fossils can be in difficult or dangerous locations

Northern Beaches, near Sydney

All of the fossils from near Sydney are from Triassic rocks around 240 million year ago. In the past old shale quarries have produced amphibian, fish, invertebrate and plant fossils. Coastal Triassic shales, especially north od Turimetta Heads are good for fossil plant specimens.

Hunter Valley

and the south coast there are plant and marine invertebrate fossils form the Periman (250 million years ago)  

Canowindra, NSW

Fossil fauna in a rich late Devonian fish fauna and is listed as part of Australia's National Heritage

Talbragar, NSW

Well know for containing one of the most significant Jurassic terrestrial fossil deposits in Australia and the only Jurassic fish site found in NSW.

Lightning Ridge, NSW

Some of the rarest and precious fossils in the world.

Grenfell, NSW

A young Devonian locality, includes a wide variety of placoderm, acanthodian and sacropterygian fishes.

  

 

 

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Australia's biggest dinosaur

Posted on July 17, 2021 by Brian Kelly | 0 comments

Dinosaurs have been in the news again recently with the classification of the Tianosaur Australotitan Cooperensis or Cooper for short. The biggest dinosaur found in Australia so far and amongst the fifteen biggest dinosaurs in the world, Measuring up to 6.5m tall and 30m long, this is a very bid dinosaur. As a comparison it as long as one and a half cricket pitches or wider than two buses and almost as long as three buses.

Cooper was discovered in 2007 on a farm in south-west Queensland near Cooper Creek, is a Sauropod and would have lived during the Cretaceous Period, 92-96 million years ago. Sauropods were large plant eating dinosaurs with small heads, very long necks, long tails and thick, pillar-like legs.

More information can be found on the Queensland Museum page. Cooper is on display at the Eromanga Natural History Museum in Queensland

Although we don't have a model of cooper in our collection, similar dinosaurs include the Brachiosaurus, Paralitian and Cetiosaurus.

     

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Where to find Dinosaurs in Victoria

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Brian Kelly | 0 comments

Want to get out, have some fun and see some dinosaurs?

Although dinosaur remains have been found on every continent and they dominated the landscape for over 140 million years there haven't been a lot of discoveries in Australia. The search in Victoria has resulted in about 1,500 dinosaur bones and teeth. 37 bones of theropods have been found, these are mainly from predatory dinosaurs as big as T Rex down to as small as a cat and a relatives to birds. As Victoria would have had a cool-warm, wet climate it is likely many of the dinosaurs were warm blooded and had feathers or down.

Melbourne Museum (Museums Victoria) in Carlton on the edge of the CBD

You can see ten dinosaurs, three pterosaurs, one mammal-like reptile and Australian megafauna in the Museums Dinosaur Walk. 5 year olds and under can dig for fossils and dinosaur bones outdoors in the children's play area.

Mamenchisaurus is a genus of sauropod, they have small heads on very long necks, long bug with a huge gut, very long tapering tail and four very solid legs to support their body. They are enormous and lived between 160 and 140 million years ago.  Other well known sauropods include Brachiosaurus, Camarasaurus, Diplododucus, Apatosaurus and Titanosaurid. The  Brachiosaurus was one of the largest known dinosaurs reaching 30 metres in length and up to 80 metric tons.

Dinosaur Walk - Melbourne Museum 

Amargasaurus is also in the genus sauropod and lived in the Early Cretaceous epoch (129 to 124 million years ago). These were small for a sauropod reaching about 10 metres in length. It had two parallel rows of spines along its back. 

Amargasaurus1 Melb Museum email.jpg

Quetzalcoatlus is a pterosaur from the Late Cretaceous and was one of the biggest ever flying animals. They are part of a family of toothless pterosaurs with very long, stiffened necks. 

Diprotodon an Australian marsupial from the Pleistocene epoch and the largest known marsupial that became extinct about 25,000 years ago.

Megalania a giant goanna or monitor lizard that lived in southern Australia during the the Pleistocene.

You can take a virtual tour of the Museums Dinosaur walk on this link

 

Dinosaur World in Somerville

A small dinosaur (4 hectare) themed fun park open on weekends and school holidays, closed in winter. It includes 18 life-size dinosaur models.

Dinosaur World

 

Zoos Victoria

- Dino Lab at Melbourne Zoo in Parkville

There is a Dino Dig, animatronic dinosaurs and baby dinosaurs.

- Zoorassic Werribee Zoo

Follow the Werribee River Trail to find the Dino Fossil Dig and 10 animatronic dinosaurs.

 

- Lost Sanctuary Healseville Sanctuary

Animatronic dinosaurs and megafauna, walk in the footprints of T-Rex

 

Jurassic Unearthed at Silvers Circus

 Includes some dinosaurs amongst their amazing feats.

Dinosaur dig sites / excursions

Strzeleki Ranges / Inverloch Dinosaur Dig Site

Is where the first dinosaur fossil was found in Victoria. There are seven main sites where fossils have been dug up in the Strzeleki Group - San Remo, The Punchbowl, The Arch, Blackhead, Powell River, Eagles Nest and Flat Rocks. Flat Rocks is still being dug but is only accessible for a few hours during low tide. 

The Inverlock site continues to be excavated. A good article can be found here.

Bunurong Coast Education run visits/tours of the site

Dinosaur Cove in the Otways

An important site that was dug for more than 20 years. It is dangerous and hard to access this site.

Koonwarra in South Gippsland

A mudstone fossil bed

 

Dinosaur Playgrounds

McNish 'Dinosaur Park" Reserve playground in Yarraville

dinosaur park yarraville

Megasaurus Playground in Cranbourne East

Dinosaur Playground Cranbourne

Portosaurus Playground in Port Melbourne

Bulla Miniature Rail in Bulla

 Bulla miniature railway

 

Do you have any suggestions of places to find Dinosaurs in Victoria that we haven't mentioned?

 

 

 

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Compare Guidraco Venator with an Aussie Cassowary

Posted on June 08, 2017 by Alice Whish | 2 comments

We compare Guidraco Venator with an Aussie Cassowary

Guidraco Venator the Pterosaur from northeast China lived 120 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous era. The name Guidraco Venator means "ghost dragon hunter". This meat eating Pterosaur had some interesting features including: a wingspan between 3 to 5 meters, a long thin skull with a mass of pointy teeth at the end of its jaw, for catching fish, and a round mass on its head. (similar to todays Australian Cassowary bird) 

 

 

Ok so he has big teeth and larger wings and a very big jaw but that head thingie looks very similar? BUY NOW

 Check out those feet!

The Australian Cassowary is a large Omnivorous flightless bird that eats mostly fruits, fungi, invertebrates and small vertebrates. That head feature is in fact a keratinous skin-covered casque which grows with age up to 18cm in an adult.

Have you seen a Cassowary up close? What was that like?

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How to make a dinosaur tail

Posted on April 07, 2016 by Alice Whish | 0 comments

 

Materials

Japanese Washi Paper, Cotton, Tissue Paper, & Ribbon

Quick Method
1. cut a large triangle from the Washi Paper
2. cut a range of circles from the coloured tissue papers
3. stitch or glue these to the large triangle
4. sew the ribbon to the base of the triangle leaving enough ribbon to tie a around your little ones waist.
TIP easiest way to stitch the circles is to use a large zigzag stitch.

To begin choose some good quality paper such as Japanese Washi Paper available from Japanese goods stores. These shops usually have a great craft section with lovely tissue papers and origami papers. Decide on the size of the triangles and divide the entire sheet from a meter of paper you usually get 4 to 5 triangles for tails.

Find some circular objects to quickly draw circles on the tissue paper, cups, and bottle lids in 2 or 3 sizes will work well and cut these out. 

These can be glued or just use a tiny amount of glue to hold them in place and use a Zigzag machine stitch to fix them to the triangle tail. Add the ribbon to the waist and your done!

The stitching gives the paper a little more strength. These dinosaur tails are light and swishy so work well for toddlers at a birthday party. Why not make everyone a dinosaur tail. Go on you can do it! Just match the number of friends to the number of years your child is turning. Yep 3 or 4 is still a party!

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Fossil Fern Terrarium - Make your own Jurassic World

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Alice Whish | 1 comment

Begin by selecting a glass jar with a lid. If possible find some sphagnum moss and use this to grow your Fossil Fern in or place regular moss over the sphagnum moss so that you do not need to use a  lot of soil. Add tiny pebbles or a rock, even a tiny piece of drift wood or piece of burnt stick from a fire. 

Finally add a mini Schleich dinosaurs or mini CollectA dinosaur available from Dinosaurs Galore A-Z - just to complete your scene.

Use a spray bottle to water 2 or 3 times a week.

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Cute Chocolate Dinosaurs

Posted on March 06, 2016 by Alice Whish | 0 comments

Cute Chocolate Dinosaurs

Ingredients & Method 
Use good quality cooking chocolate such as ( - broken into small pieces) and put 2/3rds into a double saucepan or bowl on top of a saucepan of water, stir and begin to melt the chocolate.

Use good quality cooking chocolate such as (Haigh's Chocolate Couverture - broken into small pieces) and put 2/3rds into a double saucepan or bowl on top of a saucepan of water, stir and begin to melt the chocolate.

NB Don't let the water touch the bottom of the bowl with the chocolate in it and don't let water get into the melting chocolate, on contact the chocolate will set and go hard.

When melted remove the chocolate from all heat sources and add the remaining chocolate and stir until melted.
Keep stirring till the chocolate is cool enough to touch and feels almost cool against your skin. Poor into Easy Choc mould and cool, pop out when set.

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Dinosaur Egg Hunt

Posted on March 05, 2016 by Alice Whish | 0 comments

Dinosaur Egg Hunt:

There are many possibilities and ways to organise a Dinosaur Egg Hunt or Fossil Find. The first involves listing items that Children can easily find and return to you in exchange for chocolate eggs. See our list below.

The second is a little more involved and works well with older children. Draw a map of the area that the children need to explore and leave clues on pieces of paper to lead the children to the Fossil or treasure of chocolate eggs. Dinosaurs Galore has lots of items to help children explore including compass, magnify glass, head torch and Dinosaur Dig fossils of bones, dinosaurs, skeletons and teeth and claws to find.

Ages 3-5
Start by listing items to be found and once gathered these can be exchanged for chocolate eggs.

1. carnivore dinosaur
1. herbivore dinosaur
1. piece of herbivore food
1.piece of sediment rock or 1 rock
1. piece of meteor rock (pretend)
1. leaf from an ancient relative of plants that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. (Wollemi pine leaf, a Gingko tree leaf, a conifer leaf, Fossil Fern or Club moss)

 

Ages 6+
Draw a map of the area that the children need to explore and leave clues on pieces of paper to lead the children to the fossil or treasure of chocolate eggs. A
sk the children to write down their answers to questions as they follow the map and find the clues. You might need a compass for this version, could also use a head torch to explore at night.

 

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Dinosaur Eggs - Gluten & Dairy Free

Posted on February 01, 2016 by Alice Whish | 2 comments

Dinosaur Eggs- Gluten & Dairy Free

These are great for parties and as lunch-box treats at school: easy to make and even the adults will love them.  They use only the sugar found naturally in 12 dried dates - AMAZING!

Ingredients

12 dates (soaked for 1 hour)

1 cup of almond meal

1/2 cup coconut shredded

1/3 cup coconut oil

1/3 cup cocoa

Tablespoon of chia seeds

+ water and whatever dry fruit you have around or none

BLEND! well use a KITCHEN WIZZ!

Roll in desiccated coconut and refrigerate

Your done!

 

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