The fossil of a giant wombat skull has been found in a Central Queensland cave. The fossil has been classified as Ramsayia magna, a species previously known from isolated teeth and jaw fragments. Researchers estimate the wombat was the size of a “really large sheep” and weighed around 130kg. Modern day wombats can grow to […]
Startlingly modern kangaroo fossil found, according to reports in La Trobe University Media Report and The Age, 4 June 2008. Ben Kear, a palaeontologist at La Trobe University, and Neville Pledge of the South Australian Museum have been studying a kangaroo fossil found in the Ngama Quarry, Lake Eyre Basin, central Australia. The fossil has […]
Giant wombat doubles in size, according to a report in New Scientist 27 September 2003, p20. Stephen Wroe of the University of Sydney studied the relationship between limb bone size and total body size in living mammals and then applied their results to fossil mammals, which are only known from their bones. Using this method, […]
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 […]
Survival of gentlest could save devils, according to ABC News in Science 4 September 2012 and DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2656.2012.02025.x. Tasmanian Devils are small carnivores living in the island state of Tasmania, south of the Australian mainland. The population of Devils has been greatly reduced over the last few decades because of a facial tumour spread by […]