95 million-year-old land bridge across Antarctica carried dinosaurs between continents

An illustrated reconstruction of a sauropod skull discovered in Australia, which paleontologists say belongs to the species Diamantinasaurus matildae. (Image credit: Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum)

A nearly 100 million-year-old, exceptionally well-preserved sauropod skull discovered in Australia may show that dinosaurs trudged across Antarctica from South America to Australia, researchers have revealed.

The near-complete sauropod skull belongs to a species called Diamantinasaurus matildae. Sauropods are known for their extremely long necks, with one dinosaur's neck stretching farther than a school bus. D. matildae was also a titanosaur, the only group of sauropod dinosaurs to live right until the end of the Cretaceous (145 million to 66 million years ago) before the nonavian dinosaurs went extinct.