Lightning Beast (Fulgurotherium australe)
Lightning Beast.
Illustration: A Musser © Australian Museum.
Lived: 130-100 million years ago (early Cretaceous)
Size: Length (head to tail): 1.5m
Description: The Lightning Beast was a small plant-eating dinosaur that moved through the floodplains and woodlands 110 million years ago. It had large, keen eyes, acute hearing, a sharp beak and long agile legs. It probably lived in herds. Its closest living relatives are birds.
Fossils: Lightning Beast fossils including leg bones and a shoulder blade (scapula) have been found at Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, and at Dinosaur Cove and other coastal locations in Victoria.
Did you know?: At the time the Lightning Beast was alive, parts of Australia lay within the Antarctic Circle.
Lightning Beast fossils have been found in southern Victoria and in northern New South Wales, so scientists wonder if the Lightning Beast migrated north each year to avoid the polar Victorian winters.
