Fossil remains of three new dinosaurs have been discovered at a prehistoric site in the Australian Outback.

The first large dinosaur find on the continent in 28 years includes the skeletal remains of a large predator which is thought to be the ancestor of the neovenator dinosaur first discovered on the Isle of Wight.

Two metres high and with three slashing claws on each hand, Australovenator wintonensis is described by the palaeontologists who found it as bigger and more terrifying than the velociraptor made famous in the Jurassic Park films. The other two fossils are those of giant herbivores. One had a stocky, hippopotamus-like build while the other was tall and giraffe-like.

The fossils, which date back about 100 million years to the middle of the Cretaceous period, were discovered in rocks known as the Winton Formation in Western Queensland. The dinosaurs were found at the site of a billabong (or stagnant pond) and have been named after characters in Australia's national song, Waltzing Matilda, which was written in Winton.

Australovenator wintonensis is named Banjo after the song's composer Banjo Patterson; Diamantinasaurus matildae is named Matilda and Wintonotitan wattsi has been dubbed Clancy.

In Patterson's song, written in 1885, a swagman who steals a jumbuck (sheep) is driven to hide in a billabong to escape pursuing police. Banjo and Matilda, possibly predator and prey, were found buried together in the 98 million-year-old billabong.

"The cheetah of his time, (Australovenator wintonensis ) was light and agile. He could run down most prey with ease over open ground," said Scott Hocknull, a palaeontologist from Queensland Museum, who led the team that discovered the fossils.

"His most distinguishing feature was three large slashing claws on each hand. Unlike some theropods that have small arms (think 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," he said.

The herbivores — the stocky Diamantinasaurus matildae and the giraffe-like Wintonotitan wattsi — are new types of titanosaurs, the largest animals ever to walk the earth.

The site was discovered three years ago when a sheep musterer came across a large bone on his property. Excavation by Mr Hocknull and his team gradually unearthed another 400 bones of the dinosaurs, including the two in the billabong.

"It's phenomenal to find two dinosaurs in the same site," Mr Hocknull told The Times. "There's a bit of a mystery around why they were both there. Maybe they both drowned or perhaps the herbivore was stuck in the mud and it attracted the predator to its death.

"But it harks back to what has always been here in Australia. The same process is still continuing; millions of years ago dinosaurs drowned in billabongs while today sheep and cattle do."

Australovenator wintonensis is believed to be closely related to neovenator, found on the isle of Wight in 1978. Both are members of the allosaurid group of dinosaurs which had previously been found only in the northern hemisphere.

"This is changing the course of our understanding of natural history in Australia," said Mr Hocknull. "And it puts Australia back on the palaeontology map."

The find was published in the public access journal Public Library of Science One. Announcing the discovery at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History in Winton, Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland, described it as a major breakthrough in the scientific understanding of prehistoric life in Australia.

Professor Rod Wells from the School of Biological Sciences at Flinders University, South Australia, said: "Australia is the exciting new frontier in vertebrate palaeontology. Scott Hocknull and his team have opened a new window on the dinosaur fauna of a 110 million-year-old portion of the world that remains largely unexplored, indeed a unique Australian fossil heritage."

Dr John Long, head of sciences at Museum Victoria, described the find as "amazing" and one of the most significant to date. "This puts Australia back on the international map of big dinosaur discoveries," he said.

Few dinosaur fossils have been discovered in Australia, compared with other similar sized continents such as South America and Africa. However the Winton formation has yielded a number of fossil sites. Between 2006 and 2009, excavations have yielded many well-preserved dinosaur fossils. But this is the first time since 1981 that such complete fossils have been found.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Mr Hocknull. "Many hundreds more fossils from this dig await preparation and there is much more material left to excavate," he said.

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