Scanning Australia’s bones
Can we solve the mystery of the elusive ngudlukanta?
Scanning Australia’s bones
It’s December 1931 when South Australian Museum mammalogist Hedley Herbert Finlayson sets out in search of a mysterious marsupial.
He travels north from his Adelaide home, deep into the outback around Clifton Hills Station.
The hot, stony and sandy plains are the lands of the Wangkangurru Yarluyandi people.
The ngudlukanta or desert rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris) had just been spotted here for the first time in 90 years.
The hot, stony and sandy plains are the lands of the Wangkangurru Yarluyandi people.
The ngudlukanta or desert rat-kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris) had just been spotted here for the first time in 90 years.
The ngudlukanta is a tiny marsupial that’s survived the remote region’s heat, drought and scarcity of food.
Weighing just under one kilogram, it’s the perfect snack for feral predators such as cats and foxes, introduced by Europeans.
The ngudlukanta is a tiny marsupial that’s survived the remote region’s heat, drought and scarcity of food.
Weighing just under one kilogram, it’s the perfect snack for feral predators such as cats and foxes, introduced by Europeans.
Hedley Herbert Finlayson spends four weeks in the outback hunting the ngudlukanta. With the help of local First Nations people, he finds and collects “a series of specimens”.
These specimens – along with the rest of Finlayson’s extensive private mammal collection – are now held by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
Hedley Herbert Finlayson spends four weeks in the outback hunting the ngudlukanta. With the help of local First Nations people, he finds and collects “a series of specimens”.
These specimens – along with the rest of Finlayson’s extensive private mammal collection – are now held by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
These bones are incredibly precious because they’re the last official record of the ngudlukanta.
It’s officially been extinct since 1994, despite sporadic reports of possible sightings.
But we’re hoping a new 3D digital public database we’ve built will help solve the mystery of whether the elusive critter could still exist out on those remote, sandy plains.
The database, which we introduce in a new paper published in BioScience today, includes the bones of hundreds of animals, but getting access to Finlayson’s ngudlukanta bones was particularly hard. Scientists rarely get permission to handle them and we wanted to fly them all the way to our CT scanning facility at Flinders University in Adelaide.
The only way was for project co-manager Jacob van Zoelen to fly to Alice Springs and return with them on his lap.
It was a nerve-wracking experience; the clear instructions from the museum’s Head of Science were: “Guard the specimen with your life!”
The only way was for project co-manager Jacob van Zoelen to fly to Alice Springs and return with them on his lap.
It was a nerve-wracking experience; the clear instructions from the Museum’s Head of Science were: “Guard the specimen with your life!”
With the CT scanner at Flinders University, we were able to scan not just the outer shape of the bones but their internal structure as well. We wanted to get the maximum amount of information about this specimen while we had this incredibly rare opportunity with it.
With the CT scanner at Flinders University, we were able to scan not just the outer shape of the bones but also their internal structure as well. We wanted to get the maximum amount of information about this specimen while we had this incredibly rare opportunity with it.
Here’s the scanned skull of the ngudlukanta. Skeletons like this are a vital scientific resource. They can tell us what lineage an animal belongs to, how it moves, what it eats, and what environments it’s adapted to.
Animal bones from archaeological sites can also help First Nations communities understand which animals their ancestors interacted with.
Museums can only display a small selection of the skeletons they hold. The vast majority are tucked safely away in storage which makes it hard for scientists to study them.
That’s why we’ve built the Ozboneviz database, Australia’s largest open-access collection of 3D biodiversity data.
It helps researchers from all around the world study rare and extinct species remotely, compare skeletal features across a wide range of Australian vertebrates, and conduct detailed analyses without physically handling fragile specimens.
But it isn’t just researchers who will benefit from Ozboneviz. Whether you’re a student, teacher, artist or simply curious about wildlife, you can zoom in, spin, and examine these museum treasures at home or in the classroom.
To build the database – which features species ranging from the brushtail possum to the red kangaroo to the Tasmanian tiger – our team spent three years travelling to four Australian museums and three university collections.
As well as CT scans, we used photogrammetry and surface scanning cameras to create accurate replicas of bones in 3D, so they can be viewed on a screen as if they are real.
We focused on scanning ten key skeletal elements of animals: the skull (including the lower jaw), the shoulder blade (scapula), the pelvis, and the limbs (ulna, humerus, femur, tibia) and ankles (astragalus and calcaneus).
To build the database – which features species ranging from the brushtail possum to the red kangaroo to the Tasmanian tiger – our team spent three years travelling to four Australian museums and three university collections.
As well as CT scans, we used photogrammetry and surface scanning cameras to create accurate replicas of bones in 3D, so they can be viewed on a screen as if they are real.
We focused on scanning ten key skeletal elements of animals: the skull (including the lower jaw), the shoulder blade (scapula), the pelvis, and the limbs (ulna, humerus, femur, tibia) and ankles (astragalus and calcaneus).
These parts of the skeleton contain the greatest amount of biological information and are the most useful for identification purposes.
These parts of the skeleton contain the greatest amount of biological information and are the most useful for identification purposes.
And what about the elusive ngudlukanta? Let’s say you’re visiting the remote north-east corner of South Australia and happen to find the remains of a recently deceased small animal with a solidly built skull.
You take a few photos, check our database, and then get in touch with experts to check if you might have discovered the remains of the mysterious marsupial.
Imagine the thrill of finding out the remains were the ngudlukanta. It would not be the first rediscovery of a species presumed to be extinct.
For example, in 2013, a population of night parrots, which had been missing for more than a century, was rediscovered in Queensland.
And in 1992, scientists found a small reptile in the belly of a dead brown snake in South Australia’s mid-north. It turned out to be a blue pygmy lizard, which had last been recorded in 1959 and was also presumed extinct.
So while Hedley Herbert Finlayson had an arduous journey deep into the outback in search of the ngudlukanta, your search for rare and iconic Australian animals can now start from your couch. This kind of accessibility should be the future of collections. And with a little luck, it could contribute to another rediscovery of a species thought long extinct.
Authors
Vera Weisbecker
Associate Professor, Flinders University
Jacob van Zoelen
PhD Candidate, Flinders University
Erin Mein
Adjunct Research Associate, Flinders University
Pietro Viacava
Digital Research Curator at the Australian National Wildlife Collection, CSIRO
Thomas Peachey
Technical Officer, 3D Digitisation, Australian Museum
Editorial production
Drew Rooke
Assistant Science + Technology Editor
The Conversation Digital Storytelling Team
Development and design
Matt Garrow
Editorial Web Developer
Ashlynne McGhee
Digital Storytelling Editor
Disclosures
Vera Weisbecker receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Greens and the Australian Mammal Society.
Erin Mein is a member of the Australian Archaeological Association and Australian Mammal Society.
Jacob van Zoelen, Pietro Viacava, and Thomas Peachey do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment
Pietro Viacava performed this work as a research associate at Flinders University, before becoming affiliated with CSIRO
Credits
Aerial image of a dried creek in the Simpson Desert. Source: Peter B Ryan/Shutterstock
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