Today, these plants are iconic to the Australian bush. But banksias and their many relatives originated in far-away shores 130 million years ago.
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Our birds are tough. They went through some mean climatic conditions to make Australia home.
There’s no single reason many Asian animals spread to Australia but few went the other way – but climate, geography and the slow drift of tectonic plates all played a role.
Africa’s mammals are a global treasure that must be protected.
Tiny plant and insect fossils provide unique insight into an ancient ecosystem that would, later, be altered by climatic shifts.
Lillipillies are one of Australia’s great gifts to the natural world. But the story of these homegrown heroes may be taking a grim turn.
Some of these trees can be over 30 metres high. Others, can live for centuries or, for the Huon pine, up to an astonishing ten millennia.
An analysis of the skull suggests the ankylosaur may have had a poorer sense of smell than its counterparts in the northern hemisphere.
Maidenhair trees, Ginkgo biloba, can live for over 1,000 years and grow 35m tall. While they’re beautiful to look at, they’re also notorious for their vomit-smelling seeds.
Australia’s invertebrates have an ancient lineage and a fascinating evolution. Get up close with macrophotography to discover tiny, unique animals you’ve probably never seen before.
The plant takes its name from the colonial botanist Joseph Banks, but the coastal banksia’s history goes way back to ancient times.
This ancient cat-sized animal lived millions of years ago and had features not found in any of today’s mammals.
These trackways offer rare insights about ancient life in a stressful, hostile environment during the Early Jurassic.
A record of sea-level change from 400 million years ago in South Africa, reveals how ecosystems and environments collapsed at the South Pole.
Australia’s slowly heading north to one day become part of Asia, but a study of the rocks tell us that’s not the first time there’s been a connection.
Plants, in their fossil forms, can reveal a great deal about past environments and climates.
You might recognise Spinosaurus, from Jurassic Park 3, but did you realise it is 100% an African dinosaur?
Researchers have found a small piece of a “lost continent” buried underneath the lava on Mauritius.
History is writ large in the remote areas around Woomera and the Nullarbor: from the fossils of microscopic, cell-like creatures to ancient stone tools to the deitrus of rocket tests and the painful legacy of the Maralinga atomic blasts.
Dinosaur bones unearthed at one of Australia’s richest fossil sites have introduced us to a new species: Savannasaurus, one of a family of huge dinosaurs that trekked here more than 100 million years ago.
Top contributors
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Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne
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Palaeontologist, Earth Science Faculty, University of New England
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Palaeontologist, Rhodes University
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Associate Professor of Geology, The University of Western Australia
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Associate Professor of Geology & Environmental Studies, Green Mountain College
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Professor of Geology, University of Adelaide
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Lecturer in Palaeontology, Universidade Federal do Piauí (UFPI)
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Reader, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
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Professor and Director, Australian Tropical Herbarium, James Cook University
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Hans Lambers is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Plant Biology and Past Inaugural Head of School of Plant Biology, The University of Western Australia
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Emeritus professor, The University of Western Australia
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Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
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Professor, University of the Witwatersrand
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PhD student, Botany, Rhodes University
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Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
