Megafauna Central showcases the unique megafauna of Central Australia of the Miocene epoch from the Alcoota Scientific Reserve.

Alcoota Scientific Reserve is a fossil deposit located north east of Alice Springs, NT. Here, the remains of thousands of individual animals, known as megafauna, occur in a massive jumble of bone amidst the remains of what some scientists think may have been an ancient waterhole. The Alcoota fossil beds have produced some of the best, most diverse, and complete examples of some of the larger extinct Australian animals from the Late Miocene (~6-8 million years ago), such as marsupial “rhinos” (diprotodontids), marsupial “tapirs” (palorchestids), giant flightless birds (dromornithids), crocodylians and marsupial “wolves” (thylacines). This era was known as “the age of mammals”, and Alcoota is the most extensive fossil deposit of its age anywhere in Australia.

Fossilised bones at Alcoota are difficult to excavate as they occur in fine but tightly packed sediment and are highly fractured due to the expansion and contraction of the clay-rich sediment over millions of years. The density of fossils also mean that each bone has to be carefully removed from other bones around, above and below it, while minimising any damage. Every bone is chemically consolidated while still in the ground before it can be moved at all, before being packed for transport for final preparation in our lab at Megafauuna Central, Alice Springs. It is a very difficult and time-consuming process, and quite an art!

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