Making the ‘Marsupial Lion‘: Bunyips, Networked Colonial Knowledge Production between 1830–59 and the Description of Thylacoleo carnifex

Abstract

This article explores the processes leading up to the description of Thylacoleo carnifex by Richard Owen in 1859. It argues that it resulted from thirty years of searching for extinct marsupial predators in Australian fossil sites, starting with the discovery of the first Australian marsupial megafauna fossils in 1830. Australian farmers, colonial and metropolitan scientists and anonymous indigenous informants conducted this search. Together these individuals formed a scientific network that found, shipped and inscribed fossils as marsupial carnivores. This network involved the constant movement of ideas, people and fossils to and from the Australian colonies as colonial investigators sought patronage, personal status and the incorporation of Australian deep time within European theoretical models. This networked model demonstrates the agency of colonial investigators without flattening the very real power differentials they had to negotiate when metropolitan experts sought out specimens, correspondents and supporters.