SYDNEY — Scientists have discovered a cave filled with 15-million-year-old fossils of prehistoric marsupials in the Outback, a rare find that has revealed some surprising similarities between the creatures and modern-day kangaroos and koalas.
The cave includes several well preserved fossils, including 26 skulls from an extinct, wombat-like marsupial called Nimbadon lavarackorum, an odd sheep-sized creature with giant claws.
The findings were described this week in theJournal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
"It's extraordinarily exciting for us," said Mike Archer, paleontologist atUniversity of New South Wales and co-author of the article.
"It's given us a window into the past of Australia that we simply didn't even have a pigeonhole into before. It's an extra insight into some of the strangest animals you could possibly imagine," he said.
Researchers have been digging at the site, in the Riversleigh World Heritage fossil field in northwest Queensland state, since 1990 and discovered the first of the Nimbadon skulls in 1993.
What were they all doing in there? There were a lot of fossiles found in this location in the Outback. 26 skulls!! It brings up the question: why were they all together? Was someone trying to save them from something? Where they sacrificed from some reason? Or did this cave form after they were already decomposing?
