Revealing Riversleigh

Uncover the extraorinary story of Australia’s ancient past through the fossil record of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, located in Boodjamulla National Park on Waanyi Country in the lower Gulf region of Queensland. Renowned for its globally significant fossil discoveries, Revealing Riversleigh presents fossils etched out of limestone to reveal why they hold such vital clues to our continent’s past.

Spanning the last 25 million years, Riversleigh’s fossil record documents a period of dramatic transformation. Discoveries by teams of UNSW palaeontologists led by Professor Michael Archer and Professor Suzanne J Hand demonstrate how Australia’s unique wildlife evolved adaptations to cope with the cycles of natural climate change that reshaped the continent’s vast, ancient rainforests into the open forests, woodlands, and grasslands of today. The fossils include ancestors of familiar modern Australian marsupials such as kangaroos and koalas, as well as fascinating extinct groups such as marsupial lions, flesh-eating kangaroos, tree-climbing crocodiles, and creatures so strange they have names like ‘Thingodonta’.

The fossils in Revealing Riversleigh provide unique insights into the processes that shaped Australia’s present biodiversity. Understanding how life responded to ancient environmental shifts gives us powerful tools to anticipate and counter future challenges. This deep time perspective is now informing innovative conservation strategies, offering hope for critically endangered species like the Mountain Pygmy-possum facing the impacts of human-induced climate change.

Featuring diverse prehistoric mammal fossils and artist reconstructions alongside photographs and videos documenting palaeontological fieldwork, lab processes, and modern conservation efforts, Revealing Riversleigh demonstrates how the past can help us understand the present in order to better protect the future.

Header image: Boodjamulla National Park, Riversleigh Fossil Field D Site. Photograph by Ian Beattie. 

Accessibility: UNSW Main Library is wheelchair accessible. Large-text booklets, a braille exhibition guide, and an audio-described guide will be available. Displays and explanatory texts will be able to be seen and read from a seated position. Videos will be captioned.