
The Alcoota fossil bed, located 180km northeast from Alice Springs, provides glimpse into Central Australia as it was around 8 million years ago and the megafauna that roamed there.

The fossil bed at Alcoota holds the fossilised bones of 3000 animals.

What are megafauna?
The Alcoota fossils are examples of megafauna, meaning ‘big animal’. In Australian palaeontology it is used to describe any species which lived during the last 10 million years and reached over 40 kg in adult weight.
Alcoota fossils are between 8 and 6 million years old.
From the fossil bed to the laboratory
Although Alcoota was first excavated in the 1960s there are still so many fossils to recover. Palaeontologists go every year to collect more specimens.


