Tag: William Buckland

Read more: A new species of marsupial lion tells us about Australia's past Unknown beast of prey Colonial discussion of extinct predators began when New South Wales pastoralist George Rankin discovered the first herbivorous Australian megafauna fossils at the Wellington Caves in 1830. Lang saw the Wellington site as akin to the UK’s Kirkdale fossil caves, discovered by William Buckland in 1821. Comparing the two sites led him to speculate that the Wellington fossils were dragged into the caves by some, as yet unknown, “beast of prey”. Read more: The Dreamtime, science and narratives of Indigenous Australia In 1842, the Wellington finds and local Aboriginal knowledge led the Queensland squatter Frederick Isaacs to search for fossil sites in his recently acquired Darling Downs sheep station. This skull was one of two specimens later used by Owen to describe Thylacoleo carnifex. This speculation was part of an emerging practice of crediting Aboriginal testimony and bunyip mythology when discussing extinct predators. Giant bunyip knee In 1845, Victorian colonists discovered the “knee joint of some gigantic animal” at Lake Colongulac (where Adeney found the Thylacoleo cranium) and showed it to a man described by them as an “intelligent black” who identified it as belonging to a bunyip. There were serious discussions within the emerging Australian scientific press about whether bunyips still existed, were extinct predators, or were completely mythological. This prediction inspired the search for more fossil megafauna and further evidence of extinct marsupial predators. Four years after receiving the cast Owen combined Adeney and Stuchbury’s fragments and created Thyalcoleo carnifex and described it as one of “the fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts.” Owen’s classification validated his earlier prediction and helped him defend his methods from attack in both the United Kingdom and the Australian colonies.