A team from the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is working in the Australian desert on an excavation of megafauna fossils. Megafauna were very large animals that once lived in Australia. By studying their bones, the MAGNT team can tell how our megafauna lived, what Australia was like when they lived, and perhaps why they died out.

On the megadig web site you can read about the Alcoota expeditions, what the scientists have found there and from 23 - 27 July 2001 you can email your questions to the scientists at the dig site who will write back to you on the web site.

Megafauna is made up of the word mega which comes from a Greek word, megas, that means large, and fauna which comes from Latin and means animal life. Some of our megafauna are related to animals still living today like kangaroos, crocodiles, koalas and wombats. One of them, the Dromornis stirtoni, was the biggest bird that ever lived - it was 3 metres tall!

Millions of years ago Australia was a part of a huge piece of land called Gondwana. About 65 million years ago, Australia broke away from Gondwana and the other continents. Ever since, Australia has been drifting towards the Equator and its climate has been getting hotter and drier. It's hard to believe but there were once inland seas and tropical forests in the middle of Australia! Until people arrived around 50,000 years ago, the animals of Australia had been isolated from the rest of the continents and had evolved very slowly. Because of this, Australian animals were unique and Australian megafauna fossils are not found anywhere else in the world.