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Nestling in the rolling green hills of south-eastern Queensland, under the shadow of the basalt-capped Boat Mountain, is one of the most remarkable fossil deposits in the world.
Located near the township of Murgon, this site is the only one in Australia that produces mammal fossils from the early part of the Tertiary Period and is dated at around 54.6 million years old.
What makes Murgon so remarkable is the diversity of animals found there that were not expected to be seen in such an old Australian deposit. The world's oldest song birds are found at Murgon as well as one of the world's oldest bats, Australonycteris.
A small mammal known from a single tooth, Tingamarra, appears to be Australia's oldest terrestrial placental mammal, suggesting that this group did live in Australia prior to its drift north into isolation. They must have died out sometime before 25 million years ago because, when the mammal fossil record picks up again in Australia, there is no sign of these tiny creatures.
Other remarkable creatures from Murgon include the only record of salamanders, a group no longer seen on this continent. There was also a very primitive snake Alamitophis.
The most striking thing about the animals from Murgon is that they are all pretty small. The largest animal is a couple of species of the crocodile Kambara, which probably only grew to around two metres in length (about the size of the modern Australian Freshwater Crocodile).
Then there are some large turtles, but all the other creatures are no bigger than large rats. It seems that this part of Australia, along with the rest of the world, was still recovering from the impact of gigantic meteorites that wiped out the dinosaurs 9 million years earlier.
Although fossils were first found at Murgon in the 1930s, it was not until the 1980s that this site received the kind of scientific attention needed to bring its ancient treasures to light. It's very much a work in progress and the promise of more surprising finds drives this significant research project.