Illustration of six historical monotreme species whose fossilised stays have been discovered at Lightning Ridge, Australia
Illustration by Peter Shouten
From inside an previous protected within the Australian Museum in Sydney, palaeontologist Tim Flannery fastidiously removes a shoe-box-sized container and locations it on a desk. Inside are extra bins and containers, like a Russian doll.
As soon as the contents are absolutely revealed and unfold out, there are 9 tiny fragments of fossilised jawbones. If Flannery and his colleagues are proper, earlier than us is a glimpse right into a misplaced world – a beforehand unknown chapter of mammal…
