Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh / Naracoorte) - (World Heritage Natural Site in Australia)

Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh / Naracoorte)

Short Report

Riversleigh and Naracoorte, located in the north and the south of eastern Australia are among the world's 10 largest fossil sites. They are a wonderful illustration of the main stages of development of Australia's unique fauna. 

Wonderful Universal Importance

Brief synthesis

Australia is considered to be the most organic striking continent in the world, a result of the almost total isolation for 35 million years after separation of Antarctica. Only two of the seven orders of incredibly striking marsupial mammals ever are included elsewhere. Two of the world's largest fossil sites, Riversleigh and Naracoorte, located in the north and the south of Australia, a great fossil record of the evolution of this special mammal fauna. This serial property offers excellent, and in many cases unique examples of mammal assemblages during the last 30 (M) years. The older fossils appear in Riversleigh, which features a very special collection of the Oligocene to Miocene period, about 10-30 million years ago. The more recent story then goes to Naracoorte, where one of the richest sites of vertebrate fossils of the glacial periods of the mid pleistocene era forms part of the current day (530,000 years ago) is preserved. This worldwide many fossil record provides a picture of the main stages of the development of the Australian mammals and illustrate their response to climate change and anthropogenic impact. 

Wide Report

Riversleigh and Naracoorte are among the world's 10 largest fossil sites: Riversleigh includes the southern part of Lawn Hill National Park in north-west Queensland; and Naracoorte is located in the south-east of South Australia. The two locations are representative for the development of the Australian fauna mammals during the Cenozic era (65 million years ago to the present).  The faunal assemblages of the Riversleigh fossil fields have changed fundamentally understanding in Australia the Middle Cenozoic vertebrate diversity. They cover a record of mammals evolution more than 20 million years, making the first records for many striking groups of live mammals, such as marsupial moles and feather-tailed catfish possums, as well as many other unique and now extinct Australian mammals such as 'marsupial lions'. A combination of factors have given rise to a location where an extraordinary diversity of beautiful fossils offer unrivalled window in Oligo-Miocene (15-25 million years ago) rainforest faunas that developed in Australia is separation of Antarctica. These faunas present the evolution of marsupial evolution, predating the late Tertiary placental / influx from Asia to Australia and the resulting wholesale the reordering of faunas in the Plio-Pleistocene epoch (7-2.5 million years ago) if the environment changed from rainforest to semi-arid grassland. A 15 million years old complete skull and almost complete dentition of the monotreme of Riversleigh has many new information on this very characteristic group of mammals. Before the Riversleigh fossil record began to unfold, there was only a Tertiary species known of the recently extinct marsupial thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), but different thylacines are identified from the Oligo-Miocene Riversleigh faunas. Other ancestral marsupial forms found in Riversleigh include mole, bandicoot, marsupial 'lion', koala, wombat, kangaroo and pretend. Placental / mammals are represented with more than 35 types of bat and the Riversleigh fossil bat record is considered to be one of the richest in the world. 

Naracoorte, opens a window in an important period of the earth's history in a continent dominated by marsupials. The last 170,000 years have been characterized by large climatic changes and the Naracoorte fauna offer a clue key to understanding marsupial reactions to this. The Naracoorte assemblage also extends over the probable time of arrival of the man in Australia and is therefore of extra value to help unravel the complex relationships between people and their environment. Naracoorte caves are also a source of specimens of possible values in the field of DNA analysis of extinct species not always available from studies of swamp/more/dune recovered fossils. 

The forms part pleistocene era fossil vertebrate deposits of Victoria Fossil Cave in Naracoorte are considered, both in terms of size and diversity, Australia's largest and best preserved and one of the richest deposits in the world. Tens of thousands of copies of 99 vertebrate species are recovered, ranging in size from very small frogs to buffalo-sized marsupials. These are excellent preserved examples of the Australian Ice-Age megafauna, as well as a large number of mainly modern species such as the Tasmanian devil and thylacine, wallabies at', possums, bettongs, mice, bats, pipes, parrots, turtles, lizards and frogs. 

The landscape in Riversleigh, in particular on the rivers, has a large number of visible archaeological traces of Aboriginal occupation and cultural significance. 

Source:whc/unesco