Australia So Much to See

 From signage near the dam wall

Leggadina – is another rodent fossil

Large Ghost Bats – lived in caves and forests at Riversleigh

Namilamadeta – An ancient burrowing marsupial.  Remains of this animal are represented in the Miocene deposits at Riversleigh

Thingadonta – A strange marsupial from Riversleigh named because of the animal’s strange teeth configuration

Chelid Turtles – closely related to the South American Psuedemydura 

Neohelos – A medium sized browsing marsupial roughly the size of a modern sheep

Balungamayine – A now extinct wallaby sized kangaroo richly represented in the late Miocine deposits

Musy Rat Kangaroo – related to today’s Musky Rat Kangaroo

Wakaleo – An ancient marsupial lion

Zyzomys – was a rock rat which lived in caves and rocky areas

Sheath-tailed Bats and Horseshoe Bats - were common prey for the much larger Ghost Bat

Wattle Bat – a small insect eating bat

Phascogale – A small carnivorous marsupial.  These animals can still be found in forest areas of Australia

Procoptodon – A giant short faced kangaroo species which survived until about 20,000 years ago

Megalania Prisca – the largest known land dwelling lizard which reached lengths of over five metres

Diprotodons – This rhinoceros sized herbivore was the largest known marsupial anywhere in the world

Pallimnarchus was a large freshwater crocodile not closely related to any modern Australia crocodiles

Species of Yurlunggur are the largest snakes found in the Riversleigh fossil deposits (up to six metres long), and also occur at other localities in northern and eastern Australia up to the Pleistocene (less than two million years ago).  Madtsoiidae, the group to which these large snakes belong, were the dominant land snakes in the southern (Gondwanan) continents and also reached Europe and North America during the Late Cretaceous (95 to 65 million years ago), but were extinct outside Australia by 45 million year ago. The group includes small lizard eating snakes as well as medium sized and giant species able to feed on medium sized mammals, but they lacked the extreme flexibility of the jaws that allow modern snakes such as pythons to swallow very large prey.    

Yurlunggur is derived from the name of a Rainbow Serpent in the Yolngu language of Arnhem Land. 

Fossil facts:   From Riversleigh, Triolabites date to 500 million years ago, and vertebrates from 26 million years to current. Most are ancestors of present animals; eg kangaroos, ghost bats, snakes, platypus, turtles and rodents.   Vertebrate species usually become extinct within two million years. 

There are living species of Emydura in most of the river systems of eastern and northern Australia, and fossils show they have existed without major change since the Late Oligocene.  The fossil specimen here was collected from THWT Site in 2007 and is mid-Miocene (around fifteen million years ago) in age.  The smaller shell is from a very similar living species, E. worrelli, found in the Gulf rivers as far inland as Mount Isa.

Use your browser back button to return to the page you were reading