Western Australian Museum scientist Dr Kenny Travouillon has discovered the new oldest fossil bilby and bandicoot, which were found in central Australia.

The oldest fossil bilby (Bulbadon warburtonae) has now been identified as 24.9 million years old. The previous was 10 million years old.

The oldest fossil bandicoot was 24.9 million years old and now the oldest fossil bandicoot (Bulungu minkinaensis) has been identified as 26 million years old. The research was published this week in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.

Dr Travouillon said the fossils had been collected by US researchers from central Australia in the 1980s and 1990s.

“I visited the US as part of a Churchill Fellowship and while I was there I worked with Professor Judd Case at the Eastern Washington University.

“Professor Case invited me to study all the fossil bilbies and bandicoots he had collected and from this I identified four new species, two of which are the oldest known fossil bandicoot (Bulungu minkinaensis) and the oldest known bilby (Bulbadon warburtonae).”

Dr Travouillon said the discovery was significant as it provided information about the past, particularly in terms of climate change.

“Discovering new fossil species help us understand how animals evolved through time and how well they copped with climate change,” he said.

The first fossil bilby ever recovered was discovered by an American palaeontologist, Professor Ruben Stirton, in South Australia in 1955. He named the 3.9-million-year-old fossil bilby, known from a single lower jaw with a few teeth, ‘Ischnodon australis’.

The published paper can be viewed at https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03115518.2021.1921274

 

Media Contact:
Flora Perrella
flora.perrella@museum.wa.gov.au