Marsupials reach Australia
Pouched mammals cross from South America through Antarctica just before the doors close.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 10 million years
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Eocene, Cenozoic
The oldest Australian mammal fossils, from Murgon in Queensland at around 55 million years ago, include marsupials with clear South American affinities. The route was overland across Antarctica, which was still forested and still joined at both ends. As the southern continents separate the connection is cut, and Australia's marsupials are left to radiate alone into carnivores, grazers, burrowers and gliders — an entire mammal fauna built from a different reproductive strategy.