Key finding

Riversleigh is one of the world's richest Oligo-Miocene mammal records, linking that period (10-30 million years ago) to the predominantly modern assemblages of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. The fossils of Riversleigh have profoundly altered our understanding of Australia’s vertebrate diversity. Here we find the first records for many distinctive groups of living mammals such as marsupial moles and feather-tailed possums, as well as many other unique and now extinct Australian mammals such as marsupial lions.

Riversleigh's fossils provide an unparalleled window into the Oligo-Miocene rainforest mammals that evolved in isolation during Australia's separation from Antarctica. Considering just mammals spanning the last 25 million years, hundreds of new species, genera, families and even a new order of very unusual mammals have been described.

The variety of deposits at Riversleigh has led to an understanding of how the environment has changed over time from a rich rainforest community to semi-arid grassland, and how the animals that lived in it have changed too.

Because of its unrivalled richness, expanse of time covered by its record, and the quality of the fossils, Riversleigh, along with Naracoorte in South Australia, was declared a serial World Heritage site (Australian Fossil Mammal Sites) in 1994.

More information:

• World Heritage List
• World Heritage place - Australian Fossil Mammal Sites

• Previous Invasive species and pathogens pressure on the Wet Tropics of Queensland
• Next Riversleigh section of the Australian Fossil Mammal Sites World Heritage integrity