G'day folks

I've got some online talks lined up this coming month for Australian heritage festival

I'll be speaking with Adele Pentland and Sally Hurst in three online talks - where we've dug, palaeontology questions, and why Australovenator is the best thing out of Australia since VB 😉

The Strzelecki unenlagiine also extends their range in Australia to at least ~10mil years.
These fossils all serve to improve our understanding of theropod diversity in Early Cretaceous Australia; we can now count noasaurids, carcharodontosaurs megaraptorids and unenlagiines.
Art by Zev Landes
8/10

Carcharodontosaurians being present in Australia is a big deal in itself.
Fossils from both the Eumeralla Formation and upper Strzelecki Group demonstrates that they were not only present in Cretaceous Australia, but that they were here for at least 10mil years.
Art by Zev Landes.
7/10

Each specimen tells a compelling story.
The megaraptorid fossils hint at large-bodied forms at their earliest geological appearance, and are among the largest theropod fossils yet found in Australia.
Art by @ppaleoartist.bsky.social
6/10

Going back to Museums Victoria collections, I found one more theropod tibia of note, discovered in 2004. From the younger Eumeralla Formation, this specimen shares the unique morphology of Siamraptor, and the 1987 tibia — the intermalleolar notch.
5/10

Then in May of 2023, Melissa returned to the Eagles Nest locality (upper Strzelecki Group), and found yet another theropod tibia. Our analysis of this small but elongate specimen found it represented an unenlagiine, extending their record back to ~120Ma. 4/10

Later that year, fossil hunter Melissa Lowery found two new specimens from the upper Strzelecki Group at a new fossil locality. In two separate (but nearby) boulders were a large tibia, and two associated caudal vertebrae — both belonging to large-bodied megaraptorids.
3/10

In 2022, I came across a theropod tibia in the collections of Museums Victoria found in 1987! From the upper Strzelecki Group, this specimen had a unique feature — what we've termed the intermalleolar notch — seen only in Siamraptor, a carcharodontosaurian from Thailand.
2/10

They’ve only waited 120Ma.
A new glimpse into theropod diversity from Early Cretaceous Australia: megaraptorids, an unenlagiine, and for the first time, carcharodontosaurians.

Read it here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Artwork by Jonathan Metzger.

1/10

Howdy folks!

My name’s Jake, I’m a vertebrate palaeontologist based in Victoria, Australia.

My research is based on non-avian Theropoda from the ‘mid’-Cretaceous of Australia!

Coastline of the upper Strzelecki Group (~121.4-118Ma).

Couldn’t ask for a better office.