A giant echidna fossil sat in a museum drawer for over a century, before revealing Australia’s lost giants

This particular fossil remained tucked away in a museum drawer for more than a century, drawing very little interest. However, after the discovery was taken out of storage and its evolutionary history came to be understood better, it revealed far more information than one might have expected at first glance, including the existence of Australia’s extinct giant echidnas. As such, it must be understood that the significance of this discovery had nothing to do with any exciting dig scenes or discoveries in the field.

On the contrary, it resulted from the reevaluation of the findings and placing them within the context of a greater discovery pattern established by other earlier studies. According to research published in PubMed Central, monotremes, which include both echidnas and platypuses, are some of the oldest mammals to ever exist.

This evolutionary history makes all fossil finds involving monotremes very important, since there are fewer examples in the fossil record than for other types of animals. While the find did not result in the creation of a completely new species of giant echidna, it was an important step in narrowing down the distribution and possible range of the ancient creatures.


From a scientific perspective, the find improved the understanding of the monotreme fossil record in Australia. It is a good example of a truth about paleontology done in museum collections: fossils never stop being valuable even after they are put away.

Why do Giant Echidnas Matter in Australia’s Past?

Today's echidna species are small and spiny. However, their extinct ancestors can become quite big. The previous analysis of giant echidnas discovered in Mammoth Cave in Western Australia showed that the extinct animals represented some of the biggest monotreme fossils found until now. The above fact matters since it illustrates that the previously unknown fossil specimen does not represent a unique case but demonstrates the existence of a wider variety of monotremes than the one that exists now. Australia had various monotremes, which had a completely different ecological niche compared to present-day species.

In light of this revised chronology, the significance of the fossil is re-evaluated. The giant echidna cannot be considered merely an enlarged form of the current echidna. Rather, the giant echidna represents a species whose ancestors experienced evolutionary development amid dramatic climatic shifts within the ancient ecosystems of Australia. Giant monotremes were part of the late Pleistocene fauna along with the rest of the megafauna, inhabiting environments that would have looked drastically different compared to contemporary Australia. In particular, the significance of the Victorian fossil is important since it extends the geographical scope of the giant echidnas beyond Western Australia, which was previously known to harbor these animals.

The Museum Drawer Fossil Changed

The scientific importance of the fossil is found in the minutiae, not the wow factor. Scientists were already aware of giant echidnas. The new information that the previously ignored museum drawer fossil offered was an evolutionary and geographic perspective. The fossil serves as an example of how discoveries can be stored in museums without scientific interpretation until scientists are prepared to do so. Older scientists might have been unable to identify the significance of the fossil due to insufficient knowledge about the anatomy or evolution of monotremes at that time. However, modern genomics and paleontology studies related to monotremes made the discovery relevant for scientists. In 2021, a Nature publication on monotreme genomics revealed how far echidnas and platypuses have evolved from other mammals.

This lesson goes further than just the echidna alone. There are vast amounts of samples within museum drawers collected through old classification systems, and a number of them probably have secrets that are yet to be uncovered. It is important to highlight that, thanks to the development of science, scientists were able to discover a great deal of information by reevaluating data they had long ignored. On the one hand, it represents another fascinating discovery. On the other hand, the fossil has its own emotional story of existence and disappearance.