So what was Koolasuchus? Tim Ziegler tells us all about Victoria's new State Fossil Emblem.

The car-sized amphibian Koolasuchus lived alongside dinosaurs in Victoria during the Cretaceous Period. In a head the size of a dustbin lid were dozens of ridged fangs for piercing prey, and two-inch tusks growing from the roof of its mouth.

Resembling something between a huge newt and a crocodile, Koolasuchus was adapted to life in the rushing rivers that once separated Australia and Antarctica. Its fossils are only found at a few beaches and coves in south Gippsland.

Koolasuchus was an unexpected discovery, as it is the long-lost member of its lineage, known as the temnospondyls. It lived in Victoria as much as 50 million years after all other temnospondyls went extinct worldwide.

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Thumbnail image of Koolasuchus cleelandi courtesy of Peter Trusler.

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