Investigation of the Lake Callabonna megafaunal necropolis

This project is a collaboration between the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum (the Museum), Winton, Qld and the Flinders University Palaeontology Group (the University), Adelaide, SA. The primary purpose of the project is to locate and excavate Megafauna fossil specimens for the purpose of research and public exhibition. The Museum is seeking only specimens of minimal scientific significance for public exhibition. Specimens of research significance discovered will be recovered by the University, as determined by University Supervisors, for research and lodgement in the SA State Collection.
Australian Age of Dinosaurs Ltd is developing an Australian natural history museum in regional Australia to display and promote the evolution and geological journey of the Australian continent. Although it has now amassed a large collection of fossils representing the different geological periods and their exposures in Australia, the Museum’s collection of megafauna specimens is meagre, comprising mostly isolated bones from various localities in Queensland and New South Wales.
The Museum seeks to acquire comprehensive skeletal specimens of Megafauna, particularly from species that are well known and studied. These include animals such as Diprotodon, Genyornis and the sthenurine kangaroos and fossil footprints of Diprotodon. Due to the exceptional number of Megafauna skeletons weathering out of the Lake Callabonna sediments, it is the only place where relatively complete specimens of these animals can be found. All recovered specimens will be professionally prepared and mounted for public exhibition.
The Flinders team will opportunistically collect specimens of research significance that are encountered which will feed into a number of ongoing honours and PhD projects, as well as providing material that will form the basis of new projects.

This project is a collaboration between the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum (the Museum), Winton, Qld and the Flinders University Palaeontology Group (the University), Adelaide, SA. The primary purpose of the project is to locate and excavate Megafauna fossil specimens for the purpose of research and public exhibition. The Museum is seeking only specimens of minimal scientific significance for public exhibition. Specimens of research significance discovered will be recovered by the University, as determined by University Supervisors, for research and lodgement in the SA State Collection.
Australian Age of Dinosaurs Ltd is developing an Australian natural history museum in regional Australia to display and promote the evolution and geological journey of the Australian continent. Although it has now amassed a large collection of fossils representing the different geological periods and their exposures in Australia, the Museum’s collection of megafauna specimens is meagre, comprising mostly isolated bones from various localities in Queensland and New South Wales.
The Museum seeks to acquire comprehensive skeletal specimens of Megafauna, particularly from species that are well known and studied. These include animals such as Diprotodon, Genyornis and the sthenurine kangaroos and fossil footprints of Diprotodon. Due to the exceptional number of Megafauna skeletons weathering out of the Lake Callabonna sediments, it is the only place where relatively complete specimens of these animals can be found. All recovered specimens will be professionally prepared and mounted for public exhibition.
The Flinders team will opportunistically collect specimens of research significance that are encountered which will feed into a number of ongoing honours and PhD projects, as well as providing material that will form the basis of new projects.

A field trip was carried out from the 3-18th of August in 2024. An adult and juvenile Diprotodon, parts of the skeletons of two Genyornis individuals and one sthenurine kangaroo, a 2mx1m trackway surface and 14 individual Diprotodon prints were collected for display at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum. In addition, a Genyornis skeleton with the most complete skull known and enamel samples from ~50 Diprotodons were collected and taken back to Flinders University where they will contribute to ongoing research projects.