Theropod Fauna from Southern Australia Indicates High Polar Diversity and Climate-Driven Dinosaur Provinciality

The Early Cretaceous fauna of Victoria, Australia, provides unique data on the composition of high latitude southern hemisphere dinosaurs. We describe and review theropod dinosaur postcranial remains from the Aptian–Albian Otway and Strzelecki groups, based on at least 37 isolated bones, and more than 90 teeth from the Flat Rocks locality. Several specimens of medium- and large-bodied individuals (estimated up to ∼8.5 metres long) represent allosauroids. Tyrannosauroids are represented by elements indicating medium body sizes (∼3 metres long), likely including the holotype femur of Timimus hermani, and a single cervical vertebra represents a juvenile spinosaurid. Single specimens representing medium- and small-bodied theropods may be referrable to Ceratosauria, Ornithomimosauria, a basal coelurosaur, and at least three taxa within Maniraptora. Thus, nine theropod taxa may have been present. Alternatively, four distinct dorsal vertebrae indicate a minimum of four taxa. However, because most taxa are known from single bones, it is likely that small-bodied theropod diversity remains underestimated. The high abundance of allosauroids and basal coelurosaurs (including tyrannosauroids and possibly ornithomimosaurs), and the relative rarity of ceratosaurs, is strikingly dissimilar to penecontemporaneous dinosaur faunas of Africa and South America, which represent an arid, lower-latitude biome. Similarities between dinosaur faunas of Victoria and the northern continents concern the proportional representatation of higher clades, and may result from the prevailing temperate–polar climate of Australia, especially at high latitudes in Victoria, which is similar to the predominant warm–temperate climate of Laurasia, but distinct from the arid climate zone that covered extensive areas of Gondwana. Most dinosaur groups probably attained a near-cosmopolitan distribution in the Jurassic, prior to fragmentation of the Pangaean supercontinent, and some aspects of the hallmark ‘Gondwanan’ fauna of South America and Africa may therefore reflect climate-driven provinciality, not vicariant evolution driven by continental fragmentation. However, vicariance may still be detected at lower phylogenetic levels

Pleistocene Frogs from the Darling Downs, South-Eastern Queensland, and their Palaeoenvironmental Significance.

Systematic collecting from fluvial late Pleistocene deposits from the Darling Downs, southeast Queensland, Australia, has led to the recovery of the first fossil frogs from the region, ail from the Myobatrachidae, a family of ground dwelling and burrowing frogs. The most common species recovered, Limnodynastes tasmaniensis, is extant on the Darling Downs. The fossil taxa include species whose extant populations inhabit arid zones(Limnodynastes sp. cf. L. spenceri), montane forests (Kyarranus spp.), and open woodlands (Neobatrachus sudelli), and indicate the existence of a mosaic of habitats during the Pleistocene. The absence of the Hylidae (tree frogs), a family common throughout the Darling Downs today, may be explained by a taphonomic bias that favours non-arboreal forms. Alternatively, hylids may have been rare or absent on the Darling Downs during the Pleistocene. © 2005 Association of Australasian Palaeontologists

Mapping an archaeology of the present: counter-mapping at the Gummingurru stone arrangement site, southeast Queensland, Australia

In 2010 a large project to map the 5ha Gummingurru stone arrangement site on the Darling Downs, southeast Queensland, Australia, was completed; 9368 rocks were plotted and recorded and many of these rocks make up the over 20 motifs on the site. But Gummingurru is a site that is more than rocks. It is part of a large cultural landscape which includes neighboring sites, resource tree plantings, scarred trees, story places and memoryscapes (Lavers, 2010). Current mapping of the site and the associated landscape features has been inhibited by the constraints of two-dimensional mapping. In this article we outline an alternative map for the site and its cultural landscape - the Prezi web-based tool. The Prezi 'map' allows the documentation of a fluid and contextual approach to place and is easily updated or modified as data or attachment to place change

A review of Australia’s Mesozoic fishes

© 2020 Geological Society of Australia Inc., Australasian Palaeontologists. The Australian Mesozoic fish fauna is considered to be depauperate in comparison with fish faunas in the Northern Hemisphere. However, due to its geographical location as a potential radiation center in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia’s Mesozoic fish fauna is important for understanding fish radiations. Most of the modern fish groups originated during the Mesozoic, but the first records of a modern fish fauna (freshwater and marine) in Australia does not occur until the lower Paleogene. Here, we review all known fossil fish-bearing localities from the Mesozoic of Australia, to improve the understanding of the record. The apparent low Australian Mesozoic fish diversity is likely due to its understudied status of the constituent fossils rather than to a depauperate record. In addition, we review recent work with the aim of placing the Australian Mesozoic fish fauna in a global context. We review the taxonomy of Australian fossil fishes and conclude that the assignments of many actinopterygians need major revision within a modern phylogenetic context. The vast majority of chondrichthyans are yet to be formally described; to the contrary all of the known lungfish specimens have been described. This study considers the microscopic and fragmented remains of Mesozoic fish already found in Australia, allowing a more complete view of the diversity of the fishes that once inhabited this continent