Scientists have discovered a cave filled with 15-million-year-old fossils of prehistoric marsupials in the Outback, a rare find that has revealed some surprising similarities between the creatures and modern-day kangaroos and koalas.
Researchers have unearthed a treasure trove of beautifully preserved fossils from the cave, including 26 skulls from an extinct, wombat-like marsupial called Nimbadon lavarackorum, an odd sheep-sized creature with giant claws. The findings were described this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
“It’s extraordinarily exciting for us,” said University of New South Wales paleontologist Mike Archer, co-author of the article. “It’s given us a window into the past of Australia that we simply didn’t even have a pigeonhole into before. It’s an extra insight into some of the strangest animals you could possibly imagine.”
I know, it’s quite interesting isn’t it. Also with human existence on earth you never know what else they might find. We’ve been here how ever many thousands of years now and still find new things each day. In another 2000 years will another race do the same to us?
Oh really?
Here in Australia, the only animals you get here are poisonous.
Yep, most dangerous animals on the planet right here.
Stranger than the animals which live there now – wow they must be very strange indeed !