Lake of the Dead

Palaeo Jam

Tens of thousands of years ago, in and around what is known as Lake Callabonna, in outback South Australia, all manner of now extinct Australian animals dwelt. But whether they walked, or slithered, or crawled, or hopped, or flew, or swam in that place, it was soon to become what has been described in an ABC Australia documentary series as the “Lake of the Dead”.

In this episode of Palaeo Jam we travel back in time with host Michael Mills, and Dr Aaron Camens and Dr Phoebe McInerney of Flinders University to find who it was that once lived in and around this “Lake of the Dead”, and what it might have been like had we the ability to transport ourselves, and take a stroll along the banks of what was once a heathy, freshwater ecosystem.

You can hear more from both Aaron and Phoebe, and several other past Palaeo Jam guests in the remarkable two-part series, from ABC Australia’s Catalyst, in “Megafauna: What Killed Australia’s Giants?”. Head to the ABC iView site at https://iview.abc.net.au/ and search for the series there.

You can follow Aaron on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DiprotoRon, and check out his Flinders University profile at https://sites.flinders.edu.au/palaeontology/home/people/academics/aaron-camens/

Amongst his extensive research work, Aaron co-authored a paper that gave us a more complete picture of the largest marsupial predator known, and a former resident of the area, Thylacoleo carnifex…

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0208020

Phoebe is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Phoebyornis

Check out her recent article in The Conversation about the skull of Genyornis, discussed in this episode…

https://theconversation.com/new-fossils-show-what-australias-giant-prehistoric-thunder-birds-looked-like-and-offer-clues-about-how-they-died-out-221599

You can find host Michael Mills on Twitter at @heapsgood https://twitter.com/Heapsgood

To connect with Dinosaur University on Facebook, follow us at https://www.facebook.com/DinosaurUniversity

At Palaeo Jam, you can also follow our Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/palaeo_jam