Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/49912
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Type: Journal article
Title: An arid-adapted middle Pleistocene vertebrate fauna from south-central Australia
Author: Prideaux, G.
Long, J.
Ayliffe, L.
Hellstrom, J.
Pillans, B.
Boles, W.
Hutchinson, M.
Roberts, R.
Cupper, M.
Arnold, L.
Devine, P.
Warburton, N.
Citation: Nature, 2007; 445(7126):422-425
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
Issue Date: 2007
ISSN: 0028-0836
1476-4687
Statement of
Responsibility: 
Gavin J. Prideaux, John A. Long, Linda K. Ayliffe, John C. Hellstrom, Brad Pillans, Walter E. Boles, Mark N. Hutchinson, Richard G. Roberts, Matthew L. Cupper, Lee J. Arnold, Paul D. Devine and Natalie M. Warburton
Abstract: How well the ecology, zoogeography and evolution of modern biotas is understood depends substantially on knowledge of the Pleistocene1, 2. Australia has one of the most distinctive, but least understood, Pleistocene faunas. Records from the western half of the continent are especially rare3. Here we report on a diverse and exceptionally well preserved middle Pleistocene vertebrate assemblage from caves beneath the arid, treeless Nullarbor plain of south-central Australia. Many taxa are represented by whole skeletons, which together serve as a template for identifying fragmentary, hitherto indeterminate, remains collected previously from Pleistocene sites across southern Australia. A remarkable eight of the 23 Nullarbor kangaroos are new, including two tree-kangaroos. The diverse herbivore assemblage implies substantially greater floristic diversity than that of the modern shrub steppe, but all other faunal and stable-isotope data indicate that the climate was very similar to today. Because the 21 Nullarbor species that did not survive the Pleistocene were well adapted to dry conditions, climate change (specifically, increased aridity) is unlikely to have been significant in their extinction
Keywords: Skeleton
Animals
Macropodidae
Carbon Isotopes
Oxygen Isotopes
Biodiversity
Desert Climate
Geography
Time Factors
Fossils
History, Ancient
Australia
Extinction, Biological
Description: © 2009 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
DOI: 10.1038/nature05471
Published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature05471
Appears in Collections:Aurora harvest
Earth and Environmental Sciences publications
Environment Institute publications

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