Out on a limb – koala fossil fills 30m year gap
Koalas are endangered in much of Australia now but in in the past there were multiple species living across the continent. The discovery of an ancient […]
How climate changed tree-kangaroos
Tree-kangaroos today are found only in tropical forests of far northern Queensland and New Guinea, but new fossil research has revealed that giant tree-kangaroos were once […]
600m years of fossils in 3D
The new Virtual Australian Museum of Palaeontology (VAMP) offers free access to 600 million years of digital Australian fossils, from mysterious early lifeforms to gigantic extinct […]
Weird animals uncovered after 25m years
The discovery of an early wombat relative with a powerful bite and a possum with bizarre nut-cracker teeth helps fill in a lost part of a […]
Night Parrot’s ‘wonky’ head and big ears
Special cranial adaptations, including an asymmetrical ‘wonky’ skull and enlarged ears, may give the critically endangered ground-dwelling Night Parrot the edge it needs to make its […]
Giant eagle discovered in Flinders Ranges
An eagle twice the size of the modern-day apex predator the wedge-tailed eagle, which soared over southern Australia more than 60,000 years ago, had a wingspan […]
PNG megafauna abound to 20,000 years ago
A giant kangaroo that once roamed on four legs through remote forests in the Papua New Guinea Highlands may have survived as recently as 20,000 years […]
Big bird bones show slow breeding
Big bones from the extinct ‘thunder bird’ or dromornithid, excavated in the northern reaches of the Flinders Ranges and near Alice Springs, have yielded new insights […]
Aussie vulture claws back from the past
Australia’s first fossil vulture has been confirmed more than 100 years after it was first described as an eagle. The discovery, by Flinders University and the […]