Australian Fossil Mammal Site - Riversleigh more information
Location
Over 2000 kilometres separate the Naracoorte and Riversleigh sites, which form the World Heritage Australian Fossil Mammal Site. Riversleigh covers an area of 10,000 hectares, is located in north-west Queensland, and confined to the watershed of the Gregory River.
Description of place
Riversleigh is one of the world's richest Oligo-Miocene mammal records, linking that period (15-25 million years ago) to the predominantly modern assemblages of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. The site provides exceptional examples of middle to late tertiary mammal assemblages, in a continent whose mammalian evolutionary history has been the most isolated and most distinctive in the world.
The extensive fossil deposits at Riversleigh are encased in hard, rough limestone, which was formed in lime-rich freshwater pools. They span a record of mammal evolution of at least 20 million years in length, providing the first records for many distinctive groups of living mammals, such as marsupial moles and feather-tailed possums, as well as many other unique and now extinct Australian mammals such as 'marsupial lions'.
The variety of deposits at Riversleigh has led to an understanding of how the environment has changed over time from a rich rainforest community to semi-arid grassland, and how the animals that lived in it have changed too.
The discovery of the fossils at Riversleigh has profoundly altered the understanding of Australia's mid-Cainozoic vertebrate diversity. The remains of a 15 million-year-old monotreme have provided new information about this highly distinctive group of mammals, and several Tertiary thylacines have been identified. Placental mammals are represented by more than 35 bat species and the Riversleigh fossil bat record is the richest in the world.
Heritage values
Relevant links
Before you download
Some documents are available as PDF files. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view the PDF file.
If you are unable to access a publication, please contact us to organise a suitable alternative format.
Key
Links to another web site
Opens a pop-up window