Journal articles: 'Kangaroos, Fossil – Australia'

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Reed, Elizabeth H. "Disarticulation of kangaroo skeletons in semi-arid Australia." Australian Journal of Zoology 49, no. 6 (2001): 615. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/zo01010.

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This study presents a natural disarticulation sequence for the western grey kangaroo, Macropus fuliginosus, from surface bone assemblages in semi-arid South Australia. Comparison with published disarticulation sequences for African ungulates reveals significant differences in the kangaroo sequence, including earlier disarticulation of the forelimb long bones, carpus and cervical elements, and later disarticulation of the caudal vertebrae, and hindlimb long bones. These differences closely correspond to anatomical and morphological features of the kangaroo skeleton. The results of this study suggest that anatomy plays an important role in disarticulation and may ultimately control the process even following utilisation by predators and scavengers. The disarticulation sequence reported here has useful applications for the interpretation of fossil bone assemblages containing both extant and extinct kangaroos.

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Easton, L. C. "Pleistocene Grey Kangaroos from the Fossil Chamber of Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia." Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 130, no. 1 (January 2006): 17–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/3721426.2006.10887045.

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Kear, Benjamin P., Bernard N. Cooke, Michael Archer, and Timothy F. Flannery. "Implications of a new species of the Oligo-Miocene kangaroo (Marsupialia: Macropodoidea) Nambaroo, from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia." Journal of Paleontology 81, no. 6 (November 2007): 1147–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1666/04-218.1.

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A partial skeleton (including both skull and postcranium) and referred dental material attributable to a new species of Oligo-Miocene kangaroo, Nambaroo gillespieae, are described from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland, Australia. The holotype specimen is one of the oldest articulated fossil kangaroo skeletons yet discovered and includes the first postcranial material definitively attributable to the extinct family Balbaridae. Functional-adaptive analysis (including comparisons with modern taxa) of the hindlimb and pedal elements suggests consistent use of quadrupedal progression rather than true hopping. Robust forelimbs and an opposable first pedal digit (lost in most macropodoids) might also indicate limited climbing ability. Cladistic analysis of 104 discrete cranio-dental and postcranial characters coded for 25 ingroup and one outgroup taxon places N. gillespieae in a plesiomorphic sister clade (also containing other Balbarids and the propleopine Ekaltadeta ima) to all other macropodoids. This result supports recent revisions to the classification of kangaroos, which recognize Balbaridae as the most basal macropodoid family-level taxon.

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DeSantis, Larisa R. G., Judith H. Field, Stephen Wroe, and John R. Dodson. "Dietary responses of Sahul (Pleistocene Australia–New Guinea) megafauna to climate and environmental change." Paleobiology 43, no. 2 (January 26, 2017): 181–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/pab.2016.50.

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AbstractThroughout the late Quaternary, the Sahul (Pleistocene Australia–New Guinea) vertebrate fauna was dominated by a diversity of large mammals, birds, and reptiles, commonly referred to as megafauna. Since ca. 450–400Ka, approximately 88 species disappeared in Sahul, including kangaroos exceeding 200kg in size, wombat-like animals the size of hippopotamuses, flightless birds, and giant monitor lizards that were likely venomous. Ongoing debates over the primary cause of these extinctions have typically favored climate change or human activities. Improving our understanding of the population biology of extinct megafauna as more refined paleoenvironmental data sets become available will assist in identifying their potential vulnerabilities. Here, we apply a multiproxy approach to analyze fossil teeth from deposits dated to the middle and late Pleistocene at Cuddie Springs in southeastern Australia, assessing relative aridity via oxygen isotopes as well as vegetation and megafaunal diets using both carbon isotopes and dental microwear texture analyses. We report that the Cuddie Springs middle Pleistocene fauna was largely dominated by browsers, including consumers of C4 shrubs, but that by late Pleistocene times the C4 dietary component was markedly reduced. Our results suggest dietary restriction in more arid conditions. These dietary shifts are consistent with other independently derived isotopic data from eggshells and wombat teeth that also suggest a reduction in C4 vegetation after ~45 Ka in southeastern Australia, coincident with increasing aridification through the middle to late Pleistocene. Understanding the ecology of extinct species is important in clarifying the primary drivers of faunal extinction in Sahul. The results presented here highlight the potential impacts of aridification on marsupial megafauna. The trend to increasingly arid conditions through the middle to late Pleistocene (as identified in other paleoenvironmental records and now also observed, in part, in the Cuddie Springs sequence) may have stressed the most vulnerable animals, perhaps accelerating the decline of late Pleistocene megafauna in Australia.

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Kear, Benjamin P., and Neville S. Pledge. "A new fossil kangaroo from the Oligocene-Miocene Etadunna Formation of Ngama Quarry, Lake Palankarinna, South Australia." Australian Journal of Zoology 55, no. 6 (2007): 331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/zo08002.

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Mandibular and postcranial remains attributable to a new fossil kangaroo (Macropodoidea) are described from the Oligocene-Miocene Etadunna Formation deposits of Ngama Quarry at Lake Palankarinna in north-eastern South Australia. The taxon is uniquely differentiated by its straight bunolophodont molar row, elongate P3 with distinct labial/lingual cingulids and 12–13 fine (shallowly incised) cuspids/transcristids, molars with a rectangular (length at least 0.3 > width) occlusal outline, hypolophid formed by a buccally directed crest from the entoconid, absence of a discrete M1 protostylid, transversely broad trigonid basin on the M1, M4 not markedly smaller than the anterior molars, distal end of humerus with sub-equally sized capitellum and trochlea (the latter also closely abutting the entepicondyle), and ulna with distinctly sinuous ventral edge. Relationships of the Ngama Quarry kangaroo are poorly resolved because of missing data; however, inclusion within the most comprehensive published phylogenetic dataset of Macropodoidea suggests close affinity with the currently extant potoroine/macropodid lineage.

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Forbes, Matt, Erick Bestland, and Rod Wells. "Preliminary 14C Dates on Bulk Soil Organic Matter from the Black Creek Megafauna Fossil Site, Rocky River, Kangaroo Island, South Australia." Radiocarbon 46, no. 1 (2004): 437–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0033822200039746.

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Radiocarbon age determinations and stratigraphy suggest that the deposits in Black Creek Swamp on Kangaroo Island record 3 phases of deposition and associated soil development which spanned at least the last 20,000 yr. Four new 14C age determinations on bulk soil organic matter and their stratigraphic context are presented in this paper. Three of these age determinations (FP6: 15,687 ± 110 BP [WK11487]; FP7: 16,326 ± 385 BP [WK11488]; and FP8: 17,618 ± 447 BP [WK11489]), are from the organic-rich fossil layer located 45–75 cm below the current floodplain surface. The fourth, a much younger date, FP5: 5589 ± 259 BP (WK11486), was obtained from the base of the overlying modern soil. The dates for the fossil layer increase systematically with depth and correlate well with 5 previous 14C dates (Hope et al., unpublished), ranging between 15,040 ± 120 BP and 19,000 ± 310 BP. This suggests that the data set represents a possible minimum age of the bulk organic matter, and considering the high organic matter contents of approximately 8%, has implications for the age of the megafauna buried in this layer. The overlying modern soil, with its much younger date, contains lower levels of organic matter (3–7%) and gastropods not seen in the fossil layer. This suggests a substantial change in environmental conditions probably due to an alteration in the floodplain drainage conditions. This chronological and sedimentalogical discontinuity indicates that 2 distinct depositional regimes existed and were separated by up to 10,000 14C yr. A calcareous, sandy silt deposit underlying the fossil layer is a calcarenite deposit with low total organic content and is considered the base of the section; it suggests a third separate depositional episode. As such, the Black Creek Swamp in the southwest corner of Kangaroo Island formed intermittently over at least the last 20,000 yr during 3 distinct depositional phases, one of which was the formation of the fossil-laden, organic-rich floodplain surface, which has a possible minimum age of approximately 15,000 to 19,000 BP.

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Camens, Aaron B., Stephen P. Carey, and Lee J. Arnold. "Vertebrate Trace Fossils from the Late Pleistocene of Kangaroo Island, South Australia." Ichnos 25, no. 2-3 (July 11, 2017): 232–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10420940.2017.1337633.

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Zhang, Xingliang, Jian Han, and Degan Shu. "A new arthropod Pygmaclypeatus daziensis from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte, South China." Journal of Paleontology 74, no. 5 (September 2000): 979–82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022336000033151.

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The early Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstatte, generally regarded as late Atdabanian (Qian and Bengtson, 1989; Bengtson et al., 1990), has become celebrated for perhaps the earliest biota of soft-bodied organisms known from the fossil record and has proven to be critical to our understanding of early metazoan evolution. The Sirius Passet fauna from Peary Land, North Greenland, another important repository of soft-bodied and poorly sclerotized fossils, was also claimed as Early Cambrian (Conway Morris et al., 1987; Budd, 1995). The exact stratigraphic position of the Sirius Passet fauna (Buen Formation) is still uncertain, although the possibility of late Atdabanian age was proposed (Vidal and Peel, 1993). Recent work dates it in the “Nevadella” Biozone (Budd and Peel, 1998). It therefore appears to be simultaneous with or perhaps slightly younger than Chengjiang Lagerstatte, Eoredlichia Biozone (Zhuravlev, 1995). The Emu Bay Shale of Kangaroo Island, South Australia, has long been famous as a source of magnificent specimens of the trilobites Redlichia takooensis and Hsunaspis bilobata. It is additionally important as the only site in Australia so far to yield a Burgess-Shale-type biota (Glaessner, 1979; Nedin, 1992). The Emu Bay Shale was considered late Early Cambrian in age (Daily, 1956; Öpik, 1975). But Zhang et al.(1980) reassessed its age based on data from the Chinese Early Cambrian. The occurrence of Redlichia takooensis and closely related species of Hsunaspis indicates an equivalence to the Tsanglangpuian in the Chinese sequence, and the contemporary South Australia fauna correlate with the Botomian of Siberia (Bengtson et al., 1990). Thus the Emu Bay Shale is younger than the upper Atdabanian Chengjiang Lagerstatte, Chiungchussuian.

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Thomson, Vicki A., Kieren J. Mitchell, Rolan Eberhard, Joe Dortch, Jeremy J. Austin, and Alan Cooper. "Genetic diversity and drivers of dwarfism in extinct island emu populations." Biology Letters 14, no. 4 (April 2018): 20170617. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2017.0617.

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Australia's iconic emu ( Dromaius novaehollandiae novaehollandiae ) is the only living representative of its genus, but fossil evidence and reports from early European explorers suggest that three island forms (at least two of which were dwarfs) became extinct during the nineteenth century. While one of these—the King Island emu—has been found to be conspecific with Australian mainland emus, little is known about how the other two forms—Kangaroo Island and Tasmanian emus—relate to the others, or even the size of Tasmanian emus. We present a comprehensive genetic and morphological analysis of Dromaius diversity, including data from one of the few definitively genuine Tasmanian emu specimens known. Our genetic analyses suggest that all the island populations represent sub-populations of mainland D . novaehollandiae . Further, the size of island emus and those on the mainland appears to scale linearly with island size but not time since isolation, suggesting that island size—and presumably concomitant limitations on resource availability—may be a more important driver of dwarfism in island emus, though its precise contribution to emu dwarfism remains to be confirmed.

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Price, Gilbert J., Julien Louys, Garry K. Smith, and Jonathan Cramb. "Shifting faunal baselines through the Quaternary revealed by cave fossils of eastern Australia." PeerJ 6 (January 22, 2019): e6099. http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.6099.

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Fossils from caves in the Manning Karst Region, New South Wales, Australia have long been known, but until now have never been assessed for their palaeontological significance. Here, we report on late Quaternary faunal records from eight caves in the region. Extinct Pleistocene megafaunal taxa are recognised in two systems and include giant echidnas (Tachyglossidae gen. et sp. indet.), devils (Sarcophilus laniarius), koalas (Phascolarctos stirtoni), marsupial ‘lions’ (Thylacoleo carnifex), and kangaroos (Macropus giganteus titan). Some caves contain skeletal remains of introduced exotics such as sheep and dogs, but also provide a rich record of small-bodied native species including Eastern Bettongs (Bettongia gaimardi), Eastern Chestnut Mice (Pseudomys gracilicaudatus), and White-footed Rabbit Rats (Conilurus albipes). These endemics are either locally extirpated or have suffered total extinction in the historic period. Their skeletal and dental remains were recorded as unmineralised surface specimens in the caves, indicating that they are recent in age. Extant populations have never been recorded locally, thus, their probable loss from the region in historic times had gone unnoticed in the absence of palaeo-evidence. Our findings suggest that the supposed habitat tolerances of such species have been substantially underestimated. It is highly likely that modern populations have suffered niche contraction since the time of European colonisation of the continent. The local extirpations of several species of digging mammal has likely led to decreased functionality of the current ecosystem.

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Butler, Kaylene, Kenny J. Travouillon, Gilbert J. Price, Michael Archer, and Suzanne J. Hand. "Cookeroo, a new genus of fossil kangaroo (Marsupialia, Macropodidae) from the Oligo-Miocene of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, Australia." Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 36, no. 3 (February 17, 2016): e1083029. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2016.1083029.

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12

Walshe, Keryn. "Indigenous Archaeological Sites and the Black Swamp Fossil Bed: Rocky River Precinct, Flinders Chase National Park, Kangaroo Island, South Australia." Australian Archaeology 60, no. 1 (January 2005): 61–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2005.11681808.

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MCDOWELL, MATTHEW C., GAVIN J. PRIDEAUX, KERYN WALSHE, FIONA BERTUCH, and GERALDINE E. JACOBSEN. "Re-evaluating the Late Quaternary fossil mammal assemblage of Seton Rockshelter, Kangaroo Island, South Australia, including the evidence for late-surviving megafauna." Journal of Quaternary Science 30, no. 4 (May 2015): 355–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2789.

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14

Haouchar, Dalal, James Haile, Matthew C. McDowell, Dáithí C. Murray, Nicole E. White, Richard J. N. Allcock, Matthew J. Phillips, Gavin J. Prideaux, and Michael Bunce. "Thorough assessment of DNA preservation from fossil bone and sediments excavated from a late Pleistocene–Holocene cave deposit on Kangaroo Island, South Australia." Quaternary Science Reviews 84 (January 2014): 56–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.11.007.

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15

Nedin, Christopher. "Palaeontology and palaeoecology of the Lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätten, Kangaroo Island, South Australia." Paleontological Society Special Publications 6 (1992): 221. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s2475262200007814.

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The last two decades have seen the status of deposits containing soft bodied Cambrian fossils rise from geological curios into one of the foundations of modern thinking on early metazoan evolution and ecology. Some thirty of these soft bodied assemblages or Lagerstätten, resembling the Burgess Shale fauna are now known. One of these is the Lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale fauna from Kangaroo Island, South Australia.The Emu Bay Shale has been mapped in two localities approx. 8 km (5 miles) apart on the northern coast of Kangaroo Island, at Emu Bay and at Big Gully. Previous investigations into the numerically abundant Lagerstätten fauna at Big Gully have highlighted its unusually pauperate diversity, with only some seven species described. The preservation is also unusual, comprising replacement by iron stained calcite. The fauna is confined to a 10 m thick basal siltstone. The age of the deposit is believed to be mid to upper Botomian and is thus marginally older than Early Cambrian soft bodied assemblages found on the North American continent and predating the better known Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale.In late 1991, a study of the Emu Bay Shale was undertaken to document the palaeontology and palaeoecology of the fauna. Preliminary findings, whilst increasing the number of species, confirm the pauperate diversity of the fauna. The new forms include several specimens of anomalocarid appendages. These not only represent the first occurrence of this form in Australia, but also the first occurrence outside the Burgess Shale of anomalocarid appendages with 11 segments, as compared with the more common and widespread 14 segment appendages. This connection may be important in the light of recent palaeoreconstructions which show the west coast of Canada and eastern Australia in close proximity during the early Cambrian. Also the spatial arrangement of the appendages indicates that anomalocarids may have shoaled and hunted in groups. They appear to have fed on the sea bottom, possibly using their appendages to probe the muddy bottom for shallowly buried prey as well as for capturing and transporting prey to the mouth.The assemblage appears to be dominated by the preservation of hard or permineralized body parts. However, abundant calcified ribbon-like structures concentrated on some bedding planes have yet to be classified. Several exceptionally preserved specimens of Myoscolex appear to have a series of metamerically repeated ‘paddle-like’ appendages, similar to some forms from the Burgess Shale, thus casting doubt on an annelid affinity.The assemblage appears representative of a deep water, low oxygen environment prone to periodic anoxia, possibly similar to the accretionary environment of the Burgess Shale.The Emu Bay Shale at Emu Bay exhibits a shelly assemblage, mostly comprised of disarticulated Hsuaspis exuvia with occasional small Redlichia exuvia and hyolithids. No calcite replacement is evident. The location represents current swept, probably shallow water environment.

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Tyler, Michael J. "A new fossil species of frog of the Australian limnodynastid genus Limnodynastes Fitzinger from the Oligocene Kangaroo Well Local Fauna of the Northern Territory and tabulation of ilial features of all extant and extinct species." Beagle : Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory 26 (December 2010): 115–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/p.287467.

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17

Betts, Marissa, Thomas Claybourn, Glenn Brock, James Jago, Christian Skovsted, and John Paterson. "Early Cambrian shelly fossils from the White Point Conglomerate, Kangaroo Island, South Australia." Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 64 (2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.4202/app.00586.2018.

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Journal articles on the topic 'Kangaroos, Fossil – Australia'

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