Collection of articles on the highly important finds made over 25 years at Riversleigh and Murgon that have made it possible to understand the last 55 million years here.

Examining international case studies including USA, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, this book identifies and explores the use of heritage throughout the world. Challenging the idea that heritage value is self-evident, and that things must be preserved, it demonstrates how it gives tangibility to the values that underpin different communities.

Is there a universal right to the free expression and preservation of cultural heritage, and if so, where is that right articulated and how can it be protected? No corner of today’s world has escaped the effects of globalization – for better or worse. This volume addresses a deeply political aspect of heritage preservation and management as it relates to human rights.

The Australian vegetation is the end result of a remarkable history of climate change, latitudinal change, continental isolation, soil evolution, interaction with an evolving fauna, fire and most recently human impact. This book presents a detailed synopsis of the critical events that led to the evolution of the unique Australian flora and the wide variety of vegetational types contained within it. The first part of the book details the past continental relationships of Australia, its palaeoclimate, fauna and the evolution of its landforms since the rise to dominance of the angiosperms at the beginning of the Cretaceous period. A detailed summary of the palaeobotanical record is then presented. The palynological record gives an overview of the vegetation and the distribution of important taxa within it, while the complementary macrofossil record is used to trace the evolution of critical taxa. This book will interest graduate students and researchers interested in the evolution of the flora of this fascinating continent.

In Queensland, in northeast Australia, lies one of the most significant fossil deposits in the world—Riversleigh. Here, the remains of many thousands of weird and wonderful prehistoric animals have been superbly preserved in the limestone outcrops. There are marsupial lions, carnivorous kangaroos, 23-foot long pythons, primitive platypuses, and early ancestors of the now extinct Tasmanian tiger. So important is this site to our understanding of what has happened to Australia and its living cargo over the last 25 million years that Riversleigh has been inscribed on the World Heritage List. Michael Archer, Suzanne J. Hand, and Henk Godthelp, the principal scientists on a remarkable excavation since 1976, explain the vast environmental and geographic changes that have occurred in this area since Australia broke away from the supercontinent of Gondwana, and how the animals on board this continental raft evolved through the ages. Photographs and evocative artwork bring to life the teeming tropical world that once existed in the now arid wastes of Riversleigh, and the authors discuss some of the unusual techniques used on a dig. They describe how to recognize fossils, how to date them, and how to reconstruct extinct animals from them. Originally published as Riversleigh: The Story of Animals in Ancient Rainforests of Inland Australia, this award-winning book is being issued for the first time in the United States.

Power is the only measure of a politician that matters: how they win power, how they use power, how they lose power. Catch and Kill is an inside account of the beguiling and nomadic nature of the unholy trinity of politics—the winning, the using, the losing. Joel Deane's gripping study of the politics of power takes us into the inner sanctum of state and national politics in Australia, investigating how four friends—Steve Bracks, John Brumby, John Thwaites, and Rob Hulls—beat the factions, won office in Victoria, then tried to hijack Canberra. It delivers a slice of political gothic, exploring the heart of the contemporary Labor Party in search of the nature of power.

There are more than 1,300 species of bats—or almost a quarter of the world’s mammal species. But before you shrink in fear from these furry “creatures of the night,” consider the bat’s fundamental role in our ecosystem. A single brown bat can eat several thousand insects in a night. Bats also pollinate and disperse the seeds for many of the plants we love, from bananas to mangoes and figs. Bats: A World of Science and Mystery presents these fascinating nocturnal creatures in a new light. Lush, full-color photographs portray bats in flight, feeding, and mating in views that show them in exceptional detail. The photos also take the reader into the roosts of bats, from caves and mines to the tents some bats build out of leaves. A comprehensive guide to what scientists know about the world of bats, the book begins with a look at bats’ origins and evolution. The book goes on to address a host of questions related to flight, diet, habitat, reproduction, and social structure: Why do some bats live alone and others in large colonies? When do bats reproduce and care for their young? How has the ability to fly—unique among mammals—influenced bats’ mating behavior? A chapter on biosonar, or echolocation, takes readers through the system of high-pitched calls bats emit to navigate and catch prey. More than half of the world’s bat species are either in decline or already considered endangered, and the book concludes with suggestions for what we can do to protect these species for future generations to benefit from and enjoy. From the tiny “bumblebee bat”—the world’s smallest mammal—to the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox, whose wingspan exceeds five feet, A Battery of Bats presents a panoramic view of one of the world’s most fascinating yet least-understood species.

This volume focuses on the broad pattern of increasing biodiversity through time, and recurrent events of minor and major ecosphere reorganization. Intense scrutiny is devoted to the pattern of physical (including isotopic), sedimentary and biotic circumstances through the time intervals during which life crises occurred. These events affected terrestrial, lacustrine and estuarine ecosystems, locally and globally, but have affected continental shelf ecosystems and even deep ocean ecosystems. The pattern of these events is the backdrop against which modelling the pattern of future environmental change needs to be evaluated.

Diagrams showing skeletal features and tooth structure and a glossary of technical terms are included.

Possums are the most common arboreal mammals in Australia. This book is concerned with the "larger" possums of Australia, those 13 species that belong to the Brushtail and Ringtail families, including the Greater Glider and the Spotted Cuscus.