Exploring the Koonwarra fossil beds with Dr Steve Poropat

Join the Nerrena Tarwin Valley Landcare group for a zoom presentation from paelentologist Dr Stephen Poropat about the Koonwarra Fossil beds. Zoom details will be emailed to you the day before the event.

Stephen, who has written extensively about the site and was a part of the most recent dig in 2018, said there was no other Cretaceous fossil site like Koonwarra in Australia, and few like it in the Southern Hemisphere.

“To have such fantastic preservation of fossil insects and other arthropods in particular is unusual and has shed light on the evolutionary history of many groups still with us today,” he said.

“But it is also important because it preserves the only Cretaceous fossil feathers in Australia, the geologically youngest horseshoe crab in Australia (Victalimulus mcqueeni), one of the oldest fossil flowers anywhere in the world, the wonderful fossil flea Tarwinia australis (one of the oldest fleas known), and the only syncaridan crustaceans known from Australia between the oldest ones (~200 million years old, if I remember correctly; they are definitely Triassic) and those still living in Tasmania.”