Monday, October 26, 2009

Letters of a Nation - Australia Post


This is a good site for history students and anyone looking for PRIMARY source materials https://200years.auspost.com.au/html/loan/archive/
Part of Australia Post's Letters of a Nation campaign, they have developed an online archive that will preserve all letter submissions and act as a resource tool for generations to come.
The original letters have been loaded up, and with transcripts, so you can read them. They are organised in time periods eg 1850-1899 or 1920-1930 and by general topics like sport or war.

Louise

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Australian Megafauna

Sites on Australian Megafauna (definition Large Animals)

Mega - very large and Fauna - animals, together mean very large animals. Megafauna did not mean just animals with fur. It also included birds, reptiles and amphibians - animals with backbones or vertebrates.
Megafauna is really a comparative term, meaning put beside other or similar animals or compared to what went before or came afterwards, these animals were very big. For instance, in Australia, the echidna that exists today in Australia and New Guinea is smaller than the echidna which existed at times in the past. The same could be said of the current suite of kangaroos, wombats and koalas.
Text from The Age Of Megafauna ABC site listed below.

The Age of Megafauna ABC Science site
Museum of Victoria Megafauna article
Museum of WA Nullabor Megafauna
Museum of Australia & extinction theory & human involvement in megafauna extinction
Wikipedia article
Death of Megafauna ABC science