THE meat-eating theropod dinosaur has been called Australovenator (nicknamed Banjo after Australian bush poet Banjo Patterson) and the two plant-eating sauropod dinosaurs are Wintonotitan and Diamantinasaurus.

'The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile. He could run down most prey with ease over open ground,' said Scott Mr Hocknull, lead author of the dinosaur discovery.

'His most distinguishing feature was three large slashing claws on each hand. Unlike some theropods that have small arms (like T Rex), Banjo was different. His arms were a primary weapon. He's Australia's answer to Velociraptor, but many times bigger and more terrifying,' said Mr Hocknull.

'Banjo' sheds light on the ancestry of the largest-ever meat-eating dinosaurs, the carcharodontosaurs, a group of dinosaurs that became gigantic, like Giganotosaurus, he said.

The two herbivore dinosaurs were different kinds of titanosaur, the largest type of dinosaur ever to have lived. Wintonotitan was a tall animal which may have fitted into a giraffe-like niche, while the stocky Diamantinasaurus was more hippo-like, said Mr Hocknull.

Two of the dinosaurs were found buried together in a 98-million-year-old 'billabong' or waterhole.

'Billabongs are a built-in part of the Australian mind because we associate them with mystery, ghosts and monsters,' said Mr Hocknull, referring to Patterson's poem Waltzing Matilda, which tells of a 'swagman' or bushman who jumps into a billabong and drowns after police try and catch him with a stolen sheep.

Mr Hocknull said hundreds more fossils from the dig were still to be prepared and there was more material to be excavated. -- REUTERS