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The
Palaeontology Department (continued):
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An assemblage of thylacine maxillary fragments and mandible sections.
Pleistocene, various localities (primarily Wellington Caves, NSW). |
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Some thylacine limb bones. Pleistocene, various localities. |
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This thylacine skull, which has been left partially embedded in its natural
matrix (cave breccia), was excavated from the Pleistocene cave deposit
"The Bone Cave" on the Murrumbidgee River, NSW. The specimen was
collected by palaeontologist Robert Etheridge Jr. in 1888, who became the
Curator of the Australian Museum in 1895. |
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A closer view of the skull. The reddish-brown breccia in which it
was found is typical of cave deposits in eastern Australia. The colour
is caused by the presence of large amounts of iron oxide. |
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This is the skull (cast replica) of a Dickson's thylacine (Nimbacinus
dicksoni). This small species lived during the Late
Oligocene to ?Middle Miocene. Its fossils have
been found at Riversleigh, in northern Queensland. To learn more
about the evolutionary history of thylacines, please see the Tertiary
pages of the section Some Thylacine Relics, as well as the
Prehistoric
Range of the Thylacine pages of the Natural History
section at my Thylacine Museum website. |
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This is a beautifully preserved example of a right Thylacoleo carnifex
maxillary fragment containing the massive P3 (3rd premolar) tooth which
is characteristic of the thylacoleonid family. Thylacoleonids are
a very unique group of now extinct marsupial predators. This specimen
is from the Pleistocene, and comes from Myall Creek near Bingara, NSW.
Acquired from Trans Mines Dept., 1963. |
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A view of the opposite side of the same maxillary fragment shown in the
previous photo. The vertebrate fossils found at Bingara are unusually
solid and heavily mineralized - much more so than the specimens found in
the cave earth deposits of Wellington and Naracoorte. |
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