Also known as Phosphate Mine-Bone Cave complex spoil heap

Where: New South Wales, Australia (32.6° S, 149.0° E: paleocoordinates 34.6° S, 148.6° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Early/Lower Pliocene to Early/Lower Pliocene (5.3 - 0.0 Ma)

• Osborne (1997) concluded that the oldest bone-bearing bed of the Wellington Caves system is the upper graded-bedded unit of the Phosphate Mine beds. The Phosphate Mine beds yielded specimens of a peramelid marsupial that Muirhead et al. (1997) referred to the early Pliocene species Perameles bowensis. The next oldest deposits are those of Big Sink, which Hand et al. (1988) concluded were early to mid-Pliocene in age. These are overlain unconformably by the Quaternary Mitchell Cave beds (Osborne, 1983, 1997). Thus, A. frangens could be Pleistocene or as old as early Pliocene.

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; lithology not reported

Size class: macrofossils

Collected by December in 1995

Collection methods: salvage, surface (float)

• South Australian Museum collection

Primary reference: M. N. Hutchinson and J. D. Scanlon. 2009. New and unusual plio-pleistocene lizard (Reptilia: Scincidae) from Wellington Caves, New South Wales, Australia. Journal of Herpetology 43(1):139-147 [R. Benson/R. Benson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 118343: authorized by Roger Benson, entered by Roger Benson on 12.10.2011, edited by Albert Garcia Selles

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)