The Society SVP & Paleo News
In an unprecedented find, a team of University of New South Wales (UNSW) researchers has unearthed from the cave floor hundreds of beautifully preserved fossils of the extinct browsing wombat-like marsupial Nimbadon lavarackorum, along with the remains of galloping kangaroos, primitive bandicoots, a fox-sized thylacine and forest bats.
Details of the find at a site known as AL90 in the famous Riversleigh World Heritage fossil field in Queensland are published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology by a team led by Dr Karen Black of the UNSW School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences. The research was supported by the Xstrata Community Partnership Program North Queensland and the Australian Research Council.
By comparing the skulls of 26 different Nimbadon individuals that died in the cave at varying stages of life the team has been able to show that its babies developed in much the same way as marsupials today, probably being born after only a month's gestation and crawling to the mother's pouch to complete their early development.
"This is a fantastic and incredibly rare site," says Dr. Black. "The exceptional preservation of the fossils has allowed us to piece together the growth and development of Nimbadon from baby to adult. So far 26 skulls – ranging in age from suckling pouch young and juveniles right through to elderly adults – have been recovered, as well as associated skeletons."
"The animals appear to have plunged to their deaths through a vertical cave entrance that may have been obscured by vegetation and acted as a natural pit-fall trap. These animals – including mothers with pouch young – either unwittingly fell to their deaths or survived the fall only to be entombed and unable to escape."
"The ceiling and walls of the cave were eroded away millions of years ago, but the floor of the cave remains at ground level. We have literally only scratched its surface, with thousands more bones evident at deeper levels in the deposit."
The site is also scientifically important because it documents a critical time in the evolution of Australia's flora and fauna when lush greenhouse conditions were giving way to a long, slow drying out that fundamentally reshaped the continent's cargo of life as rainforests retreated.
Dr. Black notes that the Nimbadon skulls also reveal that early in life, the emphasis of its growth was on the development of bones at the front of the face, to help the baby to suckle from its mother. As it grew older and its diet changed to eating leaves, the rest of the skull developed and grew quite massive by way of a series of bony chambers surrounding the brain.
Team member Professor Mike Archer says, "Yet we found that its brain was quite small and stopped growing relatively early in its life. We think it needed a large surface area of skull to provide attachments for all the muscle power it required to chew large quantities of leaves, so its skull features empty areas, or sinus cavities. Roughly translated, this may be the first demonstration of how a growing mammal ‘pays’ for the need to eat more greens – by becoming an 'airhead'."
'The abundance of Nimbadon fossils also suggests that they travelled in family groups or perhaps even larger gatherings; it's possible that this also reflects the beginning of mob behaviour in herbivorous marsupials, such as we see today in grey kangaroos."
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ABOUT THE SOCIETY OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY
Founded in 1940 by thirty-four paleontologists, the Society now has more than 2,400 members representing professionals, students, artists, preparators and others interested in VP. It is organized exclusively for educational and scientific purposes, with the object of advancing the science of vertebrate paleontology.
The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (JVP) is the leading journal of professional vertebrate paleontology and the flagship publication of the Society. It was founded in 1980 by Dr. Jiri Zidek and publishes contributions on all aspects of vertebrate paleontology.
Information for this release provided by the University of New South Wales.
Click here for complimentary access to the full article.
The article appears in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30(4) published by Taylor and Francis.
Journal Web site: Society of Vertebrate Paleontology: http://www.vertpaleo.org
CONTACT INFORMATION
Karen Black
UNSW
mobile + 61 (0) 428 591 429
k.black@unsw.edu.au
Mike Archer
UNSW
mobile + 61 (0) 423 553 333
m.archer@unsw.edu.au
Media liaison – Bob Beale
UNSW
+ 61 (0)411 705 435
bbeale@unsw.edu.au (from whom high-res images are available)
See also: http://vertebratepaleo.com/AL90/
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