Tim Ziegler
Collection Manager, Vertebrate Palaeontology
About me
- Contact me
- Contact me through our enquiries team
I preserve Victoria's fossil collections of over 250,000 backboned animals, plants, and microfossils. This includes dinosaurs, giant marsupials, amber from tree sap, and ancient sharks and whales.
I organise and improve the digital collection database, and facilitate access for visiting researchers. I also prepare fossils by removing surrounding rock with hand tools, air-powered drills and acid.
I carry out field surveys around Victoria, particularly investigating the fossil record of Late Pleistocene megafauna. I have a research interest in traces left behind on fossil bones, such as bite marks, weathering, and geochemical changes. The study of this evidence is known as taphonomy and tells us about past environments and the way an animal lived and died.
Qualifications
Honours (Science), Deakin University, 2016
B.Sc., Monash University, 2015
B.A., Monash University, 2010
Links
- Article: We spent 2 years in deep underground caves to bring this extraordinary fossil to light
- Video: Discover Documentary #6 – Prehistoric Marine Mammals
- Video - Going deep underground for a 50,000 year old fossil kangaroo
- Video - Koolasuchus: Victoria's State Fossil Emblem
- Video - Museum Lecture: Favourite Treasures
Publications
Flannery, T.F., Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Ziegler, T., Veatch, E.G. & Helgen, K.M. (2022) A review of monotreme (Monotremata) evolution. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 46 (1): 3-20.
Ziegler, T. & Van Huet, S.J. (2021) Testing the reliability of the Fiorillo bone surface abrasion scale. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 36: 102865.
Poropat, S.F., White, M.A., Ziegler, T., Pentland, A.H., Rigby, S.L., Duncan, R.J., Sloan, T. & Elliott, D.A. (2021) A diverse Late Cretaceous vertebrate tracksite from the Winton Formation of Queensland, Australia. PeerJ 9: e11544.
Rich, T.H., Flannery, T.F., Evans, A.R., White, M.A., Ziegler, T., Maguire, A., Poropat, S.F., Trusler, P. & Vickers-Rich, P. (2020) Multiple hypotheses about two mammalian upper dentitions from the Early Cretaceous of Australia. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 44 (4): 528-536
Marx, F.G., Hocking, D.P., Park, T., Ziegler, T., Evans, A.R. & Fitzgerald, E.M.G.F. (2016) Suction feeding preceded filtering in baleen whale evolution. Memoirs of Museum Victoria 75: 71-82.