What about Jurassic Ark? We had many enquiries when the region around our Jurassic Ark (JA) outdoor museum site was flooded in March 2022. People remember that previous floods in 2011 had caused a lot of damage. Our comments and photos below. Yes it’s true! The floods of 2011 took us right out, with […]
Oldest fossil Eucalyptus flower with pollen found, according to Botany One 20 January 2021 and American Journal of Botany 3 December 2020 doi:10.1002/ajb2.1569. Usually regarded as an Aussie Icon, the Gum Trees or Eucalypt family have produced several fossil surprises from other countries. Scientists have now studied the preserved pollen of a new species of […]
Koalas climb like apes, according to Inside JEB 17 December 2019 and Journal of Experimental Biology 17 December 2019 doi: 10.1242/jeb.207506. The typical picture of a koala is one of a semi-comatose animal sitting passively in the fork of a tree. This is understandable as koalas sleep for up to 18 hours a day. However, […]
Remarkably modern fossil skink found, according to reports in ScienceDaily 1 May 2019, and Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology published online doi: 10.1080/02724634.2019.1577873. Palaeontologist from Flinders University, Australia, who were excavating the Riversleigh fossil site in northern Australia have found a fossil skink “remarkably similar to modern social skinks”. Skinks are type of lizard common in […]
Dingo species dispute reported in ABC News 7 March 2019 and Zootaxa 5 March 2019, doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.4564.1.6. A group of researchers has carried out an extensive study of the Australian wild dog, known as the dingo, and claim it should be classified as a separate species of dog with the name Canis dingo, rather than […]
Killer kangaroos and demon ducks reported in The Australian and BBC News, 12 July 2006, and the Daily Telegraph (UK) 13 July 2006. Palaeontologists excavating the Riversleigh fossil deposit in northwest Queensland have found fossils of 20 new species including a “meat eating kangaroo with long fangs” and a giant bird nicknamed by the fossil […]
Aussie fossil animals are plants, claims University of Oregon scientist, according to articles in ScienceNOW 12 December 2012 and ABC News in Science 13 December 2012. The Ediacaran fossils are imprints of creatures found in the rocks in South Australia dated as 635 to 542 million years old, i.e. before the Cambrian explosion. They have […]
Aussie dinos the biggest, or at least their tracks are, according to reports in ABC News 21 & 27 March 2017, BBC News 27 March 2017, and Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, doi:10.1080/02724634.2016.1269539 published online 24 March 2017. A team of scientists from University of Queensland and James Cook University have mapped out multiple dinosaur trackways […]
Electro-sense cost platypus teeth, according to Science Advances 2016;2: e1601329, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1601329, published online 12 October 2016. A team of scientists from Japan, USA and Australia have compared the skull of the present day platypus with that of a fossil platypus named Obdurodon. The fossil platypus is larger than the present day platypus, and it […]
Aussie Tasmanian devils evolve cancer resistance, according to reports in ScienceDaily, Science (AAAS) news, Nature News 30 August 2016, and ABC News 31 August 2016, and Nature Communications doi.org/10.1038/ncomms12684 published online 30 August 2016. Over the past 20 years a deadly cancer has rapidly spread through the population of Tasmanian Devils. The cancer, named Devil […]