Australia is in the midst of an incredible “dinosaur boom” as record numbers of farmers unearth ancient dinosaur bones that send tourists flocking to their rural properties.
Up until the 21st Century, dinosaur fossils were extremely rare to find in Australia, according to Matt Hearne, curator at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. The massive island continent was a huge knowledge gap for palaeontologists all over the world.
Now, Mr Hearne says dinosaur bones are “bloody everywhere”.
Australia’s dinosaur boom began in 1999, when David Elliot discovered scientifically groundbreaking fossils on his farm near Winton, 15 hours northwest of Brisbane.
His fellow farmers were nervous about the discovery, as many wondered whether it would allow scientists to seize their property, but Mr Elliot went ahead and contacted a palaeontologist.
It turned out he’d discovered the giant fossilised thighbone of a sauropod that roamed Australia some 95 million years ago.
“We were very much a test case for the region. No one else was putting their hand up,” Mr Elliot, 66, recently told the New York Times.
Some of the biggest dinosaurs ever recorded were found Down Under, including a string of newly discovered species.
Australia’s largest dinosaur — Australotitan cooperensis, also known as the “southern titan” — was discovered in Coopers Creek in 2007 and is estimated to have stretched the length of a basketball court.
Many of the incredible finds begin with a farmer tripping over an unusual-looking rock, deep in the sparsely populated plains of central west Queensland.
Better yet, the dinosaur boom has fuelled a thriving tourism industry deep in the Australian outback.
Volunteers pay thousands of dollars each to attend palaeontological digs, while more casual roadtrippers stop to visit sites such as the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum on Mr Elliot’s property.
The volunteers, many of whom simply describe themselves as dinosaur-lovers, pay up to $3700 a head to attend a one-week dig in the outback.
The guests are helping to revive tourism in small towns such as Winton — a town which has seen its population halve to just 1100 in the past two decades.
Mr Elliot’s museum, though, attracted 60,000 people in 2021.
“It’s gone absolutely crazy,” Kev Fawcett, the owner of the Winton Hotel, told the New York Times.
Mr Fawcett says the winter season now gets so busy that tourists sleep in their cars, unable to find space in any of Winton’s three caravan parks and four motels.