Pelagornis
The spikes you can see along Pelagornis' beak aren’t really teeth. They don’t grow or fall out like teeth but are part of the skull.
Fossilised leaves
These fossils were found in brown coal mines in Anglesea. Coal forms when plant material is buried and put under pressure. But brown coal seams were not buried deeply enough to turn into black coal. Instead, leaves, fruits and branches were preserved including Australia's earliest fossil evidence of the banksia.
Where can you see this today?
In Queensland's northeast you can see forests similar to those that would have grown in this area 40 million years ago.
Bracken | Moo-laa
Many of the plants in our garden have different names in First People's languages. This bracken fern is known as Moo-laa in the Tjapwurong language spoken in western Victoria but it is also known as Gurgi | Eora, Makkitch | Gunditjmara, and Geewan | GunaiKurnai.
Discovery
The Koonwarra fossil bed in South Gippsland was once the site of an ancient lake. These Early Cretaceous fossils were unearthed by accident in 1961 during roadworks on the highway. Fossilised insects, fish, plants and spiders have been found there.
