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We have merch available again!\n\nThanks to Will for suggesting this week's topic, the burrunjor!\n\nMuttaburrasaurus had a big nose [picture by Matt Martyniuk (Dinoguy2) - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3909643]:\n\n\n\nThe "rock art" that Rex Gilroy "found":\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\n\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\n\nRecently, Will suggested we learn about an Australian cryptid called the burrunjor. As it happens, this is a short chapter in my book Beyond Bigfoot & Nessie: Lesser-Known Mystery Animals from Around the World, which is available to buy if you haven\u2019t already. I\u2019ve updated it a little from the chapter, so even if you have the book I think you\u2019ll find this a fun episode.\n\nDinosaurs once lived in what is now Australia, just as they lived throughout the rest of the world. Similar to the southwestern United States reports of little living dinosaurs that we talked about in episode 252, some people in northern Australia report seeing living dinosaurs running around on their hind legs\u2014but these dinosaurs aren\u2019t so little.\n\nThe burrunjor, as it\u2019s called, is often described as looking like a Tyrannosaurus rex. Mostly, though, people don\u2019t actually see it. Instead, they hear roaring or bellowing and later see the tracks of a large, three-toed animal that was walking on its hind legs.\n\nOne Australian dinosaur that people mention when trying to solve the mystery of the burrunjor is Muttaburrasaurus. It was an ornithopod that grew up to 26 feet long, or 8 meters. It walked on its hind legs and had a big bump on the top of its muzzle that made its head shape unusual. No one\u2019s sure what the bump was for, but some scientists speculate it might have been a resonant chamber so the animal could produce loud calls to attract a mate. Other scientists think it might have just been for display. Or, of course, it might have been both\u2014or something else entirely. None of the Australian dinosaur sightings mention a big bump on the dinosaur\u2019s nose. Muttaburrasaurus also had four toes on its hind feet, not three, and it disappeared from the fossil record about 103 million years ago. It also probably ate plants, not meat.\n\nAnother suggestion is that the burrunjor is a megaraptorid that survived from the late Cretaceous. These dinosaurs looked like theropods but with longer, more robust arms. Most scientists these days group them with the theropods. Most of the known specimens are from what is now South America, but two species are known from Australia, Australovenator and Rapator.\n\nAustralovenator is estimated as growing up to 20 feet long, or 6 meters, and probably stood about the same height as a tall human. It was a fast runner and relatively lightly built. It disappeared from the fossil record around 95 million years ago, not that we have very many bones in the first place. We only know Rapator from a single bone dated to 96 million years ago. It was probably related to Australovenator, although some paleontologists think Australovenator and Rapator are the same dinosaur. Either way, it\u2019s doubtful that any of these animals survived the extinction event that killed off all the other non-avian dinosaurs.\n\n\u201cBurrunjor\u201d is supposed to be a word used by ancient Aboriginal people to describe a monstrous lizard that eats kangaroos. But in actuality, Burrunjor is the name of a trickster demigod in the local Arnhem Aboriginal tradition and has nothing to do with reptiles or monsters. The Aboriginal rock art supposedly depicting a dinosaur-like creature doesn\u2019t resemble other rock art in the region and isn\u2019t recognized by researchers or Aboriginal people as being authentic.\n\nAll accounts of the burrunjor trace back to a single source, an Australian paranormal writer named Rex Gilroy. Gilroy was the one who \u201cdiscovered\u201d the rock art of a supposed dinosaur and none of the sightings he reports appear in local newspapers.