Ediacara Conservation Park to be expanded
NewsAlien-like impressions of animals preserved in South Australia half a billion years ago will be given further protections by the State Government.
fossils
Digging at Lightning Ridge
Science & EnvironmentEach year Australian Geographic sets out for Lightning Ridge to discover fossils and opals, or even fossilised opals.
Scientists have discovered a fossil fish with a platypus-like snout
NewsThe newly discovered fossil of Brindabellaspis, a fish with a platypus-like snout, reveals that coral reefs have long been evolution hotspots.
Australia’s ancient snakes were swimmers and underground dwellers
NewsMeet two of Australia’s ancient snakes, Yurlunggur and Wonambi.
Lightning Ridge Fossil Dig
UncategorisedSearch for opalised fossils on this Australian Geographic expedition.
Tracking the evolutionary history of our once carnivorous bilbies and bandicoots
WildlifeKenny Travouillon, the curator of mammology at the Western Australian Museum, has been studying the ancient ancestry of bilbies and bandicoots for ten years. Through the rigorous analysis of extensive fossil records from Museums all across Australia, he’s grown more wary of the future of these iconic Aussie animals.
Scientist shed new light on the mystery of the pygmy right whale
NewsScientists have been shocked to find fossils belonging to the pygmy right whale—typically confined to the Southern Hemisphere, in parts of Italy and Japan.
Scientists may have discovered how dinosaurs evolved into birds
Science & EnvironmentHow did dinosaurs evolve beaks and become birds? Scientists think they have the answer.
Prehistoric marine creatures: monsters of the deep
WildlifeAustralia was a wet and wild place in the Cretaceous Period (145-65 million years ago), and not a safe spot for a dip in the sea. It was closer to the South Pole, but a warmer world meant temperate regions stretched further south than today. The Eromanga Sea covered much of Queensland; this body of water was so vast at one point that it extended into South Australia, splitting the continent. While dinosaurs held sway on the land, exotic reptiles flourished in the inland sea. Four major groups dominated. Ichthyosaurs were dolphin-like predators with four flippers and a vertical tail fin. Sea turtles were represented by four known species, one of which was a 4m giant. Plesiosaurs had four flippers, but two different body types: large-headed, small-necked forms (called pliosaurs); and small-headed, long-necked forms. Neck length was taken to extremes in one group, the elasmosaurs. Mosasaurs, which didn’t appear until about the time that ichthyosaurs became extinct and the Eromanga Sea retreated, were long-bodied predators related to snakes and monitor lizards. Of these four diverse and successful groups, only the turtles remain in the oceans. Text by Maria Zammit