Fragments of a million-year-old face found in Spain shed new light on ancient human migrations

In a system of caves in the Atapuerca Mountains in Spain, nearly 50 years of systematic archaeological excavations have unearthed evidence of increasingly ancient human occupation.

The result of this systematic work has yielded human traces stretching from the Bronze Age to hundreds of thousands of years into the past – before modern humans like us (Homo sapiens) even existed.

In new research published in Nature, our team shares another find from Atapuerca: the earliest human remains ever found in Western Europe. We discovered fragments of face bones from a species of extinct human previously unknown in this region, dating from between 1.2 million and 1.4 million years ago.

Sima del Elefante

Back in 2022, during our annual field season, our team unearthed a series of bone fragments from a cave called Sima del Elefante (Pit of the Elephant). The fragments are from the left side of the mid-face of an adult human.

In 2008, a human jawbone more than 1.1 million years old had been found at the same site. The new fragments were found around two metres deeper than the jawbone, which suggests they are even older.

Since the discovery, our team has spent more than two years meticulously studying the remains. We wanted to find out which species of ancient human they belonged to, and understand the lives and environment of these long-extinct cousins.

Which species does the face belong to?

Evidence from the Gran Dolina site, not far from Sima del Elefante, has shown that a species of ancient humans known as Homo antecessor once populated the Atapuerca region. Direct dating of H. antecessor fossils has shown they lived in the region around 850,000 years ago.

Since the 1960s, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of ancient human occupation in a network of caves at Atapuerca in northern Spain, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
UtaUtaNapishtim / Wikimedia

The first question we asked about the new face fossil was whether it belonged to H. antecessor. This species had a relatively modern-looking face: quite vertical, rather than the strongly sloping shape often seen in older species.

The shape of our new face bones was not a match for H. antecessor, so what could it be?

We compared the remains to those of other earlier hominin groups, including ones from the Dmanisi site in the Republic of Georgia, which have been dated to around 1.8 million years ago. The Sima del Elefante face differs from the Dmanisi hominins, especially in the area around the nose.

However, it does share some similarities with Homo erectus, the first human species to spread from Africa to Asia, beginning around 2 million years ago, and now also found in Western Europe. The similarities include the lack of a projecting nose and the forward-projection of the midface.

However, key details about the Sima del Elefante face are still missing. For now, we are classifying it as Homo aff. erectus, which means it appears to be closely related to H. erectus but lacks some defining features.

Beyond the hominin fossils

At Sima del Elefante, we recovered stone tools and the remains of animals alongside the hominin fossils. The marks of use on the tools as well as the cut marks found in the animal remains suggest that this species practised butchery in the cave.

We also know, thanks to pollen and the remains of small animals, that the ancient humans lived in an environment dominated by a humid forest landscape.

Evidence of stone tools was also found near the ancient face fossil at Sima del Elefante.
Nature / Maria D. Guillén / IPHES-CERCA

Our discovery opens new possibilities for understanding the origins and population dynamics of the earliest human settlements in Western Europe.

From the fossils at Dmanisi, we know that hominins had left Africa at least 1.8 million years ago. Now, the Sima del Elefante finding tells us that within a few hundred thousand years, hominins had made it to the westernmost part of Europe. What’s more, the shape of their faces had evolved during that time.

The finding also raises questions about whether there were two populations of different hominins living in the Atapuerca region at the same time. Did H. antecessor and H. aff. erectus coexist? Or had H. aff. erectus died out by the time H. antecessor arrived?

If the latter is true, what drove one species to extinction while another flourished? In this second scenario, we need to consider the factors behind both the extinction of the species and their dispersal.

Earlier research has suggested that hominin populations were strongly affected by climate and other environmental conditions. Hominins may have spread into Europe when conditions were kind, and died out when the climate became less hospitable.

There is still much work ahead of us. Year after year, we return to Atapuerca to continue unearthing evidence that pieces together the story of our origins. Each new discovery is a step forward in understanding our past. Läs mer…

We can’t keep relying on the ADF to respond to natural disasters – how to rebuild our emergency volunteer workforce

The recent rollover of two army trucks carrying Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel responding to ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred was unprecedented for a domestic emergency operation.

Thirty-two soldiers were hospitalised in the twin incidents, which occurred when a convoy of military vehicles was en route to assist flood-affected residents of Lismore. The accident reignited debate over the sustainability of the ADF’s expanding role in disaster response.

We are relying on the military more frequently because Australia’s renowned voluntary emergency workforce is shrinking. Not enough people are fronting up to fight the fires and floods, and other calamities that regularly blight the Australian landscape.

Unless the volunteer army is revitalised, the burden on the ADF will continue to grow, as will the related risk of compromising Australia’s national security.

Response and recovery model

Australia’s disaster response system operates as a multi-agency model, combining career emergency personnel, trained volunteers, and when necessary, ADF assets.

Each state and territory manages its own emergency response through a multitude of agencies. In Victoria, the State Emergency Service (SES) specialises in floods, storms and tsunamis while the Country Fire Authority (CFA) is responsible for fire suppression and rescues across most of the state.

These agencies have career personnel who oversee operations, manage logistics, coordinate mobilisations, and provide leadership. However, the vast majority of frontline responders are volunteers.

In New South Wales, the Rural Fire Service (RFS) has over 70,000 volunteers across approximately 2,000 brigades, making up the vast majority of its workforce. The service has only around 1,200 paid staff. The NSW SES is also heavily volunteer-driven, with around 10,000 volunteers, supported by approximately 460 paid staff.

Volunteers form the backbone of these emergency services.

Major distraction

When disasters exceed the capacity of emergency services, the ADF is called in to provide additional support.

Investigations are continuing into how two army trucks rolled during cyclone deployment.
W02 Raymond Vance/AAP

Operation Bushfire Assist for example, involved more than 6,500 ADF personnel, including 3,000 reservists who were deployed to tackle the 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires. It was the largest ADF mobilisation for domestic disaster relief in Australian history.

The defence force serves Australian communities during times of need. But it is not a civilian disaster agency.

The ADF’s core mission is defence and combat capabilities, not firefighting, flood rescues, or storm recovery. Requests for assistance have traditionally had to be balanced against military priorities.

Last year, a Senate inquiry into Australia’s Disaster Resilience warned this growing reliance may not be sustainable.

ADF disaster assistance also comes at a financial cost. It is estimated the relief work during the 2022 floods in Queensland and NSW as well as the 2019–2020 bush fires exceeded $90 million.

Every time the ADF is deployed for disaster relief, it diverts personnel and resources from other defence priorities.

Fewer volunteers

The ADF keeps getting called up because there is often no one else to do the work.

The number of operational CFA volunteers in Victoria has plummeted from 36,823 in 2014 to 28,906 in 2024. The pattern is repeated to varying degrees across all emergency services, including the SES and CFA.

Measures are needed to bolster recruitment of emergency volunteers.
Diego Fedele/AAP

The current volunteer base is also ageing, and younger Australians are not stepping up at the same rate.

Australians aged 55 years and over are more likely to volunteer than younger Australians.

To reduce the burden on the military, there is no other option than an all out effort to revitalise the volunteer emergency workforce.

Boosting emergency volunteering

Awareness is an issue. Many young people have no exposure to emergency services volunteering.

Recruitment efforts may not be reaching them effectively. Traditional, long-term volunteer commitments may not suit younger generations. The solution could be more flexible, short-term, or event-based volunteering options.

A national campaign to highlight the role and importance of emergency volunteers as a social responsibility
could help shift attitudes and increase participation and retention.

Incentives could help too, starting with tax deductions on costs incurred while volunteering such as mileage, travel and uniforms. And consideration should be given to a proposal in the United Kingdom to offer council tax discounts to residents who engage in community volunteering.

Removing barriers is also important. Some volunteers leave due to excessive paperwork, slow on-boarding or financial burden. Reducing red tape while maintaining safety standards could improve retention.

Beyond recruitment, creating a positive experience for volunteers would also make a difference.

Businesses and higher education also have a role to play.

Corporate volunteer programs that allow employees to assist emergency services during work hours could expand the volunteer pool. More universities should be incorporating volunteering into their personal development programs.

Finally, promoting volunteerism as a core Australian value, especially through the education system, would be helpful. It would shape attitudes early and make generational differences.

A strong volunteering culture helps keep us safe. Without it, we risk becoming even more vulnerable to deadly natural disasters. Läs mer…

The High Court made a landmark decision on native title law. Here’s what it means

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the name of a deceased person.

The High Court of Australia has handed down a landmark judgement on native title law in Australia.

Commonwealth vs Yunupingu was about whether the Gumatj Clan in the Northern Territory would be entitled to compensation from the Commonwealth for acts that affected their native title rights and interests.

The court ultimately found the Gumatj Clan was eligible for compensation, holding the Commonwealth liable.

The case has been described as one of the most significant tests of native title since the famous Mabo proceedings in 1992.

Where did the case come from?

The late Yunupingu, on behalf of the Gumatj Clan of the Yolngu People in North-East Arnhem Land, sought compensation for land subject to bauxite mining in the Gove Peninsula.

The clan is seeking an estimated $700 million in compensation as the mining activity winds up, leaving their land damaged.

The Crown authorised the mining in the area without the Gumatj Clan’s consent between the 1930s and ‘60s.

The mining lease, originally granted to Nabalco, is now held by Swiss Aluminium and operated by Rio Tinto.

What were the laws at play?

Commonwealth vs Yunupingu deals with how native title and constitutional law overlap.

Native title law recognises the connection Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have to their lands. It is based on their traditional laws and customs dating back long before British invasion, and continues today. It’s governed by the Native Title Act, which includes provisions for compensation when native title rights or interests are impaired or taken away.

Under section 51 of the Constitution, the Commonwealth must pay an owner fairly if they acquire their property. This is called the “just terms” guarantee.

This section was famously the subject of the film The Castle, with lawyers arguing it was about “the vibe” of the Constitution.

The case was also about section 122, which concerns how the territories are governed.

There were three main issues that were debated before the High Court: whether native title land can be acquired, whether the just terms guarantee applies to the territories, and what role pre-Constitutional mining agreements play.

What were the legal arguments?

The Commonwealth told the High Court it doesn’t have to pay for taking away native title rights because those rights are “inherently defeasible” and therefore not property able to be “acquired”. Defeasible means it can be cancelled.

It’s a technical legal point, but amounts to arguing native title rights can’t be transferred and therefore can’t be acquired by the Commonwealth.

It also argued the just terms guarantee doesn’t apply to the territories in the constitution, except in specific circumstances.

Finally, the Commonwealth said it took ownership of the minerals found in the area before the Constitution was created by granting leases that “reserved” mineral rights to the Crown. This meant, the Commonwealth said, it could have these rights without having to pay native title holders.

Lawyers for the Gumatj Clan countered these points.

They told the court native title rights are covered by the just terms guarantee.

They said to make sense of the Constitution, it must be read as a whole. Therefore, laws about the territories are also subject to the guarantee.

People living in the territories of Australia should still be entitled to fair compensation for property that is acquired and not be excluded because they are in a territory rather than a state.

Members of the Gumatj Clan took the case to the Federal Court first, but the Commonwealth appealed to the High Court.
Rex Martinich/AAP

Lawyers for the Gumatj Clan submitted that “reserving” of minerals within the early pre-Constitution leases meant the leaseholders were given rights to everything except the minerals in the ground. No rights to minerals were granted at all – not to the leaseholders and not to the Crown.

This would mean native title holders with rights to the minerals in those lands would continue to have those rights. As the Commonwealth affected these rights through legislation and mining leases, they must pay the owners fairly.

What did the court find?

In getting to this point, the Federal Court has sided with the Gumatj Clan, but the Commonwealth appealed to the High Court.

After hearing detailed arguments over three days in August, the High Court Justices dismissed the appeal.

In doing so, it found that taking away native title rights is like taking property. As a result, the just terms guarantee applies and means the Gumatj Clan should be fairly compensated.

It also agreed with the clan that the guarantee applies to territories as well as the states.

The court found the early pre-Constitution pastoral leases did not have the effect of taking away any non-exclusive native title rights over minerals, meaning the Gumatj Clan continued to have their rights until the legislation and mining leases took place in the 1930s to ’60s.

The matter will return to the Federal Court to resolve the remaining legal issues.

What does all this mean?

Ultimately, the decision by the High Court is significant. It will allow for some acts that have caused profound harms to First Nations people from 1911 to be covered by compensation.

This decision follows a 2019 High Court judgement, commonly referred to as Timber Creek, which awarded compensation under the Native Title Act for the first time. The case was described as the most significant native title case to follow Mabo, opening the door for “billions of dollars” to be claimed by First Nations Peoples for impacts on their lands.

This case solidifies that precedent and takes it further by formally expanding the range of acts for which native title holders could apply for compensation.

Until now, there has been a widespread assumption that compensation under the native title system would only be available for acts that occurred after the introduction of the Racial Discrimination Act in 1975, but this case proves otherwise.

This is limited to acts done by the Commonwealth, which may mean this will largely have implications for acts done in the territories, because the Commonwealth managed the Territories after federation until 1978 (NT) and 1988 (ACT). Läs mer…

Victims of sexual violence often feel they’re the ones on trial. Independent lawyers would help

The Australian Law Reform Commission has launched its final report on how the justice system deals with sexual violence. The Safe, Informed, Supported: Reforming Justice Responses to Sexual Violence report found there are widespread barriers to victim-survivors’ access to, and engagement with, the justice system.

More than a year in the making, the report makes 64 recommendations to improve victim-survivors’ experiences and outcomes.

These include recommendations that centre safe, informed and supportive services, such as justice system navigators, independent legal services, and safe places to disclose.

Importantly, the inquiry also recommended independent legal advisers be introduced to help victim-survivors navigate the court system and advocate for their rights. It’s a measure supported by academic research, including my own, soon to be published by the Australian Institute of Criminology.

High rates of sexual violence

More than one in five women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

Women experience sexual violence at greater rates than men, but research suggests non-binary and transgender people are victimised at similar or higher rates than cisgender women.

The justice system relies on victim-survivors’ confidence that they’ll be kept safe if they report sexual violence.

In reality, however, many will avoid or delay reporting because they fear police and justice system responses.

So as stark as the statistics above are, they only reflect reported sexual violence. Actual rates are likely much higher.

The Personal Safety Survey found that 92% of women did not report their most recent experience of sexual violence to police. This suggests there continues to be low reporting rates and a reluctance for victim-survivors to engage the justice system.

Even if they do report, the criminal justice system has been found to re-traumatise victim-survivors, leading to unsatisfactory experiences and outcomes.

Humiliated and confused

The Australian Law Reform Commission set out to inquire into justice system responses to sexual violence in August 2023.

This inquiry formed part of the government’s $14.7 million 2023–24 budget commitment to strengthen and harmonise consent laws and transform experiences and outcomes for victim-survivors.

The commission heard from victim-survivors, practitioners, ministers and other experts which informed the terms of reference.

The commission’s report is the latest piece of evidence in a growing body examining victim-survivors’ negative experiences in the courts. My forthcoming report shows they feel violated, scared, humiliated and confused when engaged with the justice system.

A key reason for this is because they have no independent lawyer advocating for them in court. They are often surprised to learn the prosecutor represents the public’s interests and not their own, which has contributed to feelings of alienation and exclusion from the justice process.

The commission heard victim-survivors are frequently exposed to character attacks at trial. In my study, 77% stated they are commonly asked about their prior sexual experiences, digital communications and counselling/medical records in court.

This made many victims feel like they were on trial rather than the perpetrator.

The Australian Law Reform Commission’s report seeks to address these problems. Recommendation nine calls for independent legal advisers to provide legal advice – and, to a more limited extent, representation – throughout criminal proceedings.

Having legal representation would enable the victim’s lawyer to challenge any request from either the prosecution or defence counsel to access and question victim-survivors’ private records, such as sexual assault counselling communications.

What can be done?

The criminal justice system already has legislation in place restricting the sorts of questions that can be asked of victims in court, such as in relation to their counselling records or prior sexual experiences.

However, my research shows these restrictions are not well enforced, exposing victim-survivors to offensive and humiliating questioning at trial. Independent lawyers for victim-survivors would better protect against this.

Read more:
New research shows 1 in 5 Australians have perpetrated sexual violence in their adult lives. The true rate might be even worse

Victim lawyers already exist in New South Wales and Queensland to offer protections of victims’ counselling records. Federal government pilots for victims’ lawyers are also underway in Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and Western Australia.

Evidence shows introducing lawyers for victim-survivors does not compromise the rights of the accused perpetrator. Instead, it allows victim-survivors to give better evidence in court, to feel more empowered, and to stay engaged in a process that has been known to re-traumatise them.

There is strong support for the introduction of independent lawyers for victim-survivors of sexual violence in research and practice evidence, and among lived experience advocates.

To ensure the promises of the inquiry are fulfilled, the government must continue to be guided by expert research evidence and the lived experience advisory group it appointed to support the implementation of the recommendations.

The author would like to acknowledge the work of researchers Michael Salter, Delanie Woodlock, Zarina Vakhitova, Andi Brown and PhD candidate Jessica Woolley for collaborating on the research this article reports. Läs mer…

A lunar eclipse is on tomorrow – NZ and parts of Australia are in for a spectacle

As the full moon rises tomorrow (Friday March 14), it will be a special sight for those in Aotearoa New Zealand. It will also be worth a look for people along the east coast of Australia.

Rather than being full and bright, the Moon will be partway through a lunar eclipse, the first of two lunar eclipses to occur this year.

New Zealand is in for a treat as the Moon will rise during totality – when the Moon passes completely into Earth’s shadow. Instead of turning dark, the Moon takes on a reddish glow that’s colloquially referred to as a “blood moon”.

Along the east coast of Australia, totality will happen while the Moon is still below the horizon; by the time the Moon rises, it will be in part-shadow.

A red Moon in Earth’s shadow

When it’s a full moon, the Sun and the Moon are located on opposite sides of the sky. With Earth in the middle, it can cast a large shadow blocking the Sun’s light from reaching the Moon.

However, during most full moons we don’t see an eclipse because the Moon’s orbit is slightly tilted – by just five degrees – compared to Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Most months the full moon passes either above or below Earth’s shadow. But twice a year, the path of the Moon takes it through the shadow instead.

When the Moon is fully immersed in shadow, the reason it turns red is entirely due to Earth’s atmosphere.

The first eclipse from the Moon

The Blue Ghost Mission 1, which successfully landed on the Moon on March 2, will be the first to image an eclipse from the Moon. As we experience the lunar eclipse, the Blue Ghost 1 lander will see a total eclipse of the Sun thanks to Earth moving in front of it.

Being on the Moon during totality and looking up at the Earth, it should see the atmosphere lit up as a ring of red.

Only the low-wavelength red sunlight passes through the atmosphere because the bluer light is scattered away. This is also the reason why sunsets have red, orange and pink hues.

Importantly, the atmosphere also refracts or bends the light, redirecting it into Earth’s shadow and making the Moon appear red.

When and where to look

Lunar eclipses are brilliant to watch – they are perfectly safe and you don’t need special equipment. Since the Moon will be low in the sky, you will need a clear view of the eastern horizon, perhaps from somewhere high up. It’s a leisurely event, so it’s also great to have good company.

Since this eclipse happens at moonrise, you can use the website timeanddate.com to check the moonrise time for your location and also to determine the eclipse magnitude, which is a measure of how much of the Moon is in shadow.

An eclipse magnitude of 1 or more means the Moon is fully in shadow or has reached totality.

If it is less than 1, it refers to the greatest fraction of the Moon’s diameter that is eclipsed. Imagine a diameter line across the Moon: where the edge of the shadow falls along that line will denote the magnitude of the eclipse.

How lunar eclipse magnitude is measured: the fraction of an imaginary diameter that is in shadow. For Brisbane, it will be 57% of the line, therefore the magnitude is 0.57.
Tanya Hill/The Conversation

Across New Zealand, the Moon will rise during totality. The farther north, the longer totality will be. By the time the Moon moves out of the shadow, twilight will have ended and the sky will be lovely and dark for the later part of the eclipse.

On the east coast of Australia, the eclipse will be visible against the bright twilight sky. This will make it much harder to see from southern New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, since only a small part of the Moon will be in shadow.

Trick of the eye

But wait, there’s more. Watching the Moon when it’s low on the horizon also creates an interesting effect called the Moon illusion.

Our brains trick us into thinking the Moon is much bigger than it usually is. But if you use your thumb to cover up the Moon when it’s low in the sky and then measure it again later in the evening when the Moon is up higher, you’ll see the Moon hasn’t really changed in size at all.

The illusion likely occurs because we instinctively think the sky is shaped like a dome and that the Moon is closer to us when it’s overhead and farther away when it’s near the horizon. After all, that’s what happens when a bird flies off into the distance.

But the Moon is much farther away than a bird; its distance doesn’t change over the course of a night.

If our brains are telling us the Moon is farther away when it’s on the horizon, the Ponzo illusion demonstrates why we are tricked into thinking it appears bigger. In the image below the two moons are exactly the same size, but the perspective provided by the railway tracks makes us see the horizon one as larger.

The two moons in the image above are the same size but we perceive the one on the horizon to be larger because it’s assumed to be further away.
Museums Victoria

If you aren’t able to see this eclipse, the second total lunar eclipse for 2025 will happen during the early hours of September 8.

It will be visible from across Australia, while New Zealand will see the eclipsed Moon setting at sunrise: almost an exact opposite to tomorrow’s eclipse. Läs mer…

Generative AI and deepfakes are fuelling health misinformation. Here’s what to look out for so you don’t get scammed

False and misleading health information online and on social media is on the rise, thanks to rapid developments in deepfake technology and generative artificial intelligence (AI).

This allows videos, photos and audio of respected health professionals to be manipulated – for example, to appear as if they are endorsing fake health-care products, or to solicit sensitive health information from Australians.

So, how do these kinds of health scams work? And what can you do to spot them?

Accessing health information online

In 2021, three in four Australians over 18 said they accessed health services – such as telehealth consultations with doctors – online. One 2023 study showed 82% of Australian parents consulted social media about health-related issues, alongside doctor consultations.

However, the worldwide growth in health-related misinformation (or, factually incorrect material) and disinformation (where people are intentionally misled) is exponential.

From Medicare email and text phishing scams, to sales of fake pharmaceuticals, Australians are at risk of losing money – and damaging their health – by following false advice.

What is deepfake technology?

An emerging area of health-related scams is linked to the use of generative AI tools to create deepfake videos, photos and audio recordings. These deepfakes are used to promote fake health-care products or lead consumers to share sensitive health information with people they believe can be trusted.

A deepfake is a photograph or video of a real person, or a sound recording of their voice, that is altered to make the person appear to do or say something they haven’t done or said.

Up to now, people used photo- or video-editing software to create fake images, like superimposing someone’s face on another person’s body. Adobe Photoshop even advertises its software’s ability to “face swap” to “ensure everyone is looking their absolute best” in family photos.

While creating deepfakes isn’t new, healthcare practitioners and organisations are raising alarm bells about the speed and hyper-realism that can be achieved with generative AI tools. When these deepfakes are shared via social media platforms, which increase the reach of misinformation significantly, the potential for harm also increases.

How is it being used in health scams?

In December 2024, for example, Diabetes Victoria called attention to the use of deepfake videos showing experts from The Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne promoting a diabetes supplement.

The media release from Diabetes Australia made clear these videos were not real and were made using AI technology.

Neither organisation endorsed the supplements or approved the fake advertising, and the doctor portrayed in the video had to alert his patients to the scam.

This isn’t the first time doctors’ (fake) images have been used to sell products. In April 2024, scammers used deepfake images of Dr Karl Kruszelnicki to sell pills to Australians via Facebook. While some users reported the posts to the platform, they were told the ads did not violate the platform’s standards.

In 2023, Tik Tok Shop came under scrutiny, with sellers manipulating doctors’ legitimate Tik Tok videos to (falsely) endorse products. Those deepfakes received more than 10 million views.

What should I look out for?

A 2024 review of more than 80 scientific studies found several ways to combat misinformation online. These included social media platforms alerting readers about unverified information and teaching digital literacy skills to older adults.

Unfortunately, many of these strategies focus on written materials or require access to accurate information to verify content. Identifying deepfakes requires different skills.

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner provides helpful resources to guide people in identifying deepfakes.

Importantly, they recommend considering the context itself. Ask yourself – is this something I would expect this person to say? Does this look like a place I would expect this person to be?

The commissioner also recommends people look and listen carefully, to check for:

blurring, cropped effects or pixelation
skin inconsistency or discoloration
video inconsistencies, such as glitches, and lighting or background changes
audio problems, such as badly synced sound
irregular blinking or movement that seems unnatural
content gaps in the storyline or speech.

Ask yourself: is this something I’d expect this person to say?
MAYA LAB/Shhutterstock

How else can I stay safe?

If you have had your own images or voices altered, you can contact the eSafety Commissioner directly for help in having that material removed.

The British Medical Journal has also published advice specific to dealing with health-related deepfakes, advising people to:

contact the person who is endorsing the product to confirm whether the image, video, or audio is legitimate
leave a public comment on the site to question whether the claims are true (this can also prompt others to be critical of the content they see and hear)
use the online platform’s reporting tools to flag fake products and to report accounts sharing misinformation
encourage others to question what they see and hear, and to seek advice from health-care providers.

This last point is critical. As with all health-related information, consumers must make informed decisions in consultation with doctors, pharmacists and other qualified health-care professionals.

As generative AI technologies become increasingly sophisticated, there is also a critical role for government in keeping Australians safe. The release in February 2025 of the long-awaited Online Safety Review makes this clear.

The review recommended Australia adopts duty of care legislation to address “harms to mental and physical wellbeing” and grievous harms from “instruction or promotion of harmful practices”.

Given the potentially harmful consequences of following deepfake health advice, duty of care legislation is needed to protect Australians and support them to make appropriate health decisions. Läs mer…

Aboriginal bands, experimental dance and a Hindu epic: the highlights of Perth Festival 2025

In the Perth Festival exhibitions brochure, artistic director Anna Reece noted that the city is “uniquely positioned in relation to Southeast Asia considering proximity and shared time zones”.

Together with the gripping yet inhuman dance work Larsen C, it was the presentation of Australian First Nations and contemporary Southeast Asian storytelling that most resonated for me in this year’s festival.

Big Name, No Blankets

Big Name, No Blankets chronicled the history of the Warumpi Band, the first rock band to be nationally broadcast singing in an Aboriginal language.

When I saw their clip for Jailanguru Pakarnu on ABC TV in 1987, it felt like an electrified message expressing an experience of modern life very different to that of white city dwellers like me.

The Warumpi band was founded at the Papunya settlement (“Warumpi”), 240km north of Alice Springs, by Butcher brothers Sammy (on guitar) and Gordon Tjapanangka (drums), singer George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga, and white guitarist Neil Murray.

The band soon attracted a following in regional Black and mixed race communities, later touring Australia’s major cities and the world. They eventually broke up under the pressures of being away from Country. The stage show shares the name of the 2013 documentary profiling Rrurrambu, but this production is told from the perspective of Sammy.

Big Name, No Blankets makes for inspiring rock stomp.
James Henry/Perth Festival

The songs go off. Taj Pigram as Rrurrambu does a fantastic rendition of the frontman’s open legged bounce, emphatic gestures and shreddingly powerful vocals.

A particular highlight is My Island Home sung in Rrurrambu’s language as an “act of reclamation”.

It makes for inspiring rock stomp.

Samsara

The feature film Samsara looks at contemporary Balinese arts, and was performed with live musicians.

Filmmaker Garin Nugroho collaborated with gamelan percussion orchestra Yuganada, and the double act of DJ Kasimyn on noise, beats and drone, and Ican Harem performing death metal vocals and throat singing.

Nugroho was inspired by 1930s Euro-American cinema, especially German Expressionism.

His straightforward depiction of village life and training in ritual dance recalls early ethnographic cinema. His tendency to use theatrical tableaux – sometimes framing the elegiac choreography of Indonesian Australian dancer Juliet Widyasari Burnett – evokes the work of American Surrealist and dancer Maya Deren.

The film Samsara was performed with live musicians.
Corey James/Perth Festival

In order to secure a dowry and wed the high born Sinta (Burnett), Darta (Ario Bayu) passes through a black, volcanic expanse to perform a dark version of the masked monkey dance. In return, the monkey god demands the couple’s son, who is shown lips drawn, teeth flashing, turned animal.

Absorbing as the film was, the live music dominated. The gamelan percussion tended to be played in alternation with the noise materials, rather than the two being combined. Kasimyn’s harsh electronica and Harem’s otherworldly growls signalled cosmic chaos.

The gamelan compositions had a staggered, rhythmically stepped feeling, featuring the blurring tonal colours and polyphony characteristic of the instrument. This one-off “cine-concert” was a rare and absorbing event.

The Mahabharata

The Mahabharata offered an on-stage retelling of Southeast Asian mythology.

From Canadian company Why Not Theatre, this is the first contemporary stage adaptation of the Hindu epic by artists of Southeast Asian descent, contrasting with the famous 1988 production by Franco-British and international artists led by Peter Brook.

Told in two parts, the first two and a half hours were quite similar to Brook’s staging, taking the form of simplified storytelling alternating with moments of high drama.

This is the first contemporary stage version of the Mahabharata by artists of Southeast Asian descent.
Apurva Gupta/Perth Festival

The kingdom is in crisis. The ruler Janamejaya has ordered all the snakes burned because one had killed his father. The storyteller (Miriam Fernandes, also co-creator of the piece) arrives to tell the king to wait and hear how it was that the snake, reincarnated out of a line of frustrated rulers, came to swear vengeance against the king’s family.

The storyteller recounts the tale of the great rivalry between his heirs: the rightful rulers of the Pandava clan, who nevertheless used treachery and broke the rules of war to win their kingdom from the many-times-wronged (if vain and unscrupulous) Kaurava clan, who also had a claim.

The battle between the cousins, related in part two, destroys the known world. Standing before a line of ropes hanging down at the back of the stage, the storyteller tells the audience that, while she spoke to the king, the snakes remained frozen in the air above the flames. It was a poetic image she asked us to hold in the back of our minds throughout.

The second part of the show departed more from Brook’s precedent.

Jay Emmanuel as Shiva the Destroyer.
Apurva Gupta/Perth Festival.

Live projections amplify the on-stage action. They show close-ups of actors faces during a failed attempt at reconciliation; walls of flames as conflict approached; and bold, abstract images for the portion representing the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most important sections of the original Hindu epic, here presented as an operatic solo.

The company’s most innovative touch was to eschew depicting the battle. Instead, the god Shiva the Destroyer (Jay Emmanuel) continuously circled, stamped and posed about the stage.

After the bloodshed, a survivor asks an observer: who showed themselves to be the greatest warrior on the battlefield? The onlooker claimed only to have seen Shiva’s feet, crushing everything into dust.

Larsen C

The most intriguingly otherworldly offering in the festival was Christos Papadopoulos’ Larsen C. Misleadingly promoted with the tagline “have you ever seen a glacier dance?”, Papadopoulos’ production did nothing of the kind, offering a disturbingly sexy portrait of hidden bodily rhythms.

The Antarctic ice shelf after which the production was named was but one of many images used to generate choreography.

Papadopoulos is concerned with the emergence and withdrawal of bodily sensation in groups and individuals. He relates this feeling to a story of himself driving and suddenly feeling like he was travelling to his grandfather’s house, down to “the sense of taste”; or when people on a train, engaged in their own internal rhythms, come into synchronicity as the carriage takes a turn.

Papadopoulos’ choreography explores this “unknown territory” lying “inside the core of the body” where rhythm and sensation exist, which can surface to govern movement, independent of conscious control.

Larsen C had a dark eroticism.
Pinelopi Gerasimou/Perth Festival

The performance has a dark eroticism, enhanced by stretchable shiny black costumes which sometimes hug, sometimes obscure, flesh.

Dancers shudder in horizontally staggered lines, or work at tiny movements in different parts of the stage. Heads are often obscured by a drop at the back of the stage.

Georgios Kotsifakis stands with his back to us, the sheen of his costume marking a diagonal across his shoulders and down to the curve of his buttocks.

Dancers excel at an almost Noh theatre-like slide sideways, effected by rotating the flat of the feet at the ankles. Elsewhere, there is a communal rising and falling, as if skating.

Catching these micro-rises of energy morphing into briefly shared exchanges requires the audience to fall into the dance’s temporality. Here, perhaps, a glacial time frame is evoked. For long periods nothing seems to happen, then bodies come into receding parallel lines, or scatter.

An atmospheric hiss gradually morphs into deep minimalist techno, the dancers briefly smiling and getting down, crafting pulsing, slippery trajectories. This too melts away, and we are back to sideways slides, performers staring ambiguously outwards.

Shimmering percussion comes in, highlighting this as a work of repetitions with slight variation. The piece concludes with an almost deformed dance, both of Alexandros Nouskas Varelas’ elbows and forearms awkwardly scissoring on one side of his body as he disappears sideways into black space.

While much of the festival revolved around humans as mythic storytellers, Larsen C offered an explicitly post-human message – that, deep in our core, our bodies are producing strange, irregular rhythms and structures, the emergence of which can be both unnerving and ecstatic. Läs mer…

The end of capitalism – or the end of civilisation? The choice could be that stark

Beware of hyperbolic headlines. But in this case, I’m afraid, as Ulrike Herrmann’s very readable book The End of Capitalism makes clear, the choice between capitalism and civilisation really does seem to be either/or – and the end will probably come a lot sooner that we thought.

Review: The End of Capitalism: Why Growth and Climate Protection are Incompatible – Ulrike Herrmann, translated by David Shaw (Scribe)

Anyone who isn’t alarmed about the rapid and well-documented decline in the global environment, upon which we and our atypically comfortable lifestyles depend, really hasn’t been paying attention. You may not enjoy reading a book like this, but you really should read it – if only for your children’s sake.

The End of Capitalism appeared in Germany a couple of years ago, but it has lost none of its relevance or urgency. On the contrary, with Donald Trump in the White House promising to “drill, baby drill”, it could hardly be more timely.

Could capitalism end?

The majority of potential readers are likely to disagree with Herrmann’s central claim that “climate protection will only be possible if we abolish capitalism”.

This is unsurprising. We have known nothing other than capitalism in the West for several hundred years. Attempts to do things differently in other parts of the world, such as the Soviet Union, generally did not go well socially or, more importantly, environmentally.

One of the reasons it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, as philosopher Fredric Jameson famously claimed, is that people everywhere like the abundance of stuff that capitalism has been instrumental in producing. Living standards, especially in the West, but also in China, India and elsewhere, have risen unimaginably in a remarkably short space of time. It is not surprising that the beneficiaries have generally been pleased about this unprecedented change in their material circumstances.

Ulrike Herrmann argues that ‘climate protection will only be possible if we abolish capitalism’.
Scribe Publishing

True, contemporary capitalism is characterised by a growing gulf between the richest and the poorest, both within and between countries. This is an awkward problem for “communist” China, but one that Australians and especially Americans seem relatively unconcerned about. Herrmann, too, is surprisingly relaxed about it. She argues that “capitalism made democracy possible – and it can be democratically controlled”.

This idea is currently being subjected to a searching real-time examination, as the Trump administration systematically eviscerates and transforms America’s system of governance to a point where sober and serious analysts consider it to be headed toward authoritarianism. Herrmann does not consider such a possibility, but she does provide a clear explanation of the rise of capitalism and the social and technological forces that have made it the most transformative force in human history.

More hyperbole? Lots of people have given up on organised religion, but not many have renounced consumerism. Unlikely as such a renunciation might seem, Herrmann argues that endless consumption is something we will have to give up if the environment is to remain habitable. The argument is simple and has been around since the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, half a century ago: a system that is predicated on ever expanding growth is incompatible with a world of finite resources, especially if one of those resources is a functioning natural environment.

Lots of people have spent the intervening 50 years pointing out why the authors of that book were wrong. It is likely they will be queuing up to tell Herrmann she is wrong, too – especially when she argues that “‘green growth’ does not exist”.

Read more:
Is inequality a natural phenomenon? Thomas Piketty argues it isn’t – and proposes a way forward

The unpalatable options

We have been repeatedly assured that technology will come to the rescue. But Herrmann contends that “we no longer have the time to wait for possible technological breakthroughs. We must act immediately if we are to avert climate collapse.”

The seemingly irreconcilable problems, she argues, are highlighted in the cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it somewhere. Despite all the hype, such technology has yet to be viably demonstrated at scale. This means “humanity will be forced to move away from fossil fuels and towards green energy”.

Unfortunately for the likes of Peter Dutton, Herrmann is scathing about the prospects for nuclear power. There is some debate about precise figures, but the German experience, which is central to the book’s main arguments, suggests that even when Germany had 19 commercially run reactors, they could only provide around 13% of total energy consumed. Herrmann points out that “the nuclear energy sector is the only branch of industry in which costs consistently rise”. Reactors are, consequently, not viable without government subsidies.

Before admirers of green energy and especially “green growth” start feeling smug, it is important to note that Herrmann is equally sceptical about wind and solar. She claims that, between them, they provide less than 10% of Germany’s energy needs and won’t be of much use in periods of dunkelflaute: the “dark doldrums” when the sun doesn’t shine (much) and the wind doesn’t blow.

In 2024, however, after the publication of the German edition of Herrmann’s book, Germany generated 59% of its electricity from renewables, including 31.9% from wind and 14.7% from solar.

Nevertheless, energy storage is expensive and difficult, and the transition to green solutions is fraught. One example: it takes 35 kilograms of scarce minerals to make a traditional petrol driven car and 210 kilograms to make an electric one. Manufacturing the batteries for them generates a further 15–20 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

As a result, “our planet is being ransacked […] Around one-third of all raw material consumption since 1900 took place in the short time between 2002 and 2015.”

The manufacture of electric vehicles requires large amounts of scarce minerals.
Es sarawuth/Shutterstock

This is why Herrmann argues that simply moving to green energy sources will not be sufficient, either to guarantee current needs or to adequately reduce our collective impact on the environment.

It is not only the automotive sector that will have to shrink. One of the industries that will be difficult to reform, much less shrink, is aviation. Over a single year, 90% of the world’s population will not fly at all and 1% will account for half of the global aviation emissions. This mirrors the grotesque levels of inequality in global wealth distribution. It means the rich will have to join the poor in “saying goodbye to flying”.

Other examples of politically unpalatable sacrifices are given throughout the book. And the message is clear:

The challenges will grow, and the funds [to address them] will shrink. Consumption must fall, which immediately begs the question of who should cut back and by how much. Distribution conflicts will be inevitable.

Given that “technology will not enable us to produce enough green energy sufficiently cheaply to fuel ‘green growth’ […] the only remaining option is green shrinkage: fewer new buildings, fewer cars, fewer chemical products”.

This is a message that no policymaker anywhere in the world, democrat or autocrat, will want to hear. It is not just the rich industrialised countries that are wedded to the idea of economic expansion. Many developing countries would like nothing better than to join their wealthy counterparts. So would the people of the global south, which is why so many of them risk their lives to flee hopeless poverty.

In any given year, 1% of people are responsible for half of global aviation emissions.
Muratart/Shutterstock

Improbable precedents

Unlikely as the necessary reforms are to be realised, Herrmann suggests that wartime Britain offers a model of what can be achieved if the dangers are sufficiently immediate and existential. She points out that “rationing was so popular in Britain because everyone had exactly the same entitlement” – though no doubt the legendary “spirit of the Blitz” also had something to do with spending nights cowering in underground stations with hundreds of strangers while people dropped bombs on you.

This is not a flippant point. Without a dramatic change of consciousness on the part of “ordinary” people generally, and policymakers in particular, it is impossible to imagine the sorts of sacrifices that seem necessary to achieve the “shrinkage” being considered, much less enacted as “necessary prohibitions”.

Given that any actions would also need to have a global, rather than just a national rationale, a radical change of collective direction also seems improbable, to put it delicately, especially if it involves something resembling central planning.

And yet Herrmann argues that there is no choice other than radical and seemingly unimaginable change if we are to survive in anything like a civilised condition:

There is no alternative for the industrialised countries. Either they end growth voluntarily, or the era of growth will end violently, when everything that forms the basis of our way of life has been destroyed.

For what it’s worth, I agree. I am not a climate scientist, but I recognise that there is an intellectual division of labour that is a central component of modernity. None of us is capable of knowing everything about the increasingly complex world in which we live. But if something like 99% of climate scientists agree on the causes and likely consequences of climate change, I am happy to take their word for it. What possible basis could I have to disagree?

Herrmann may not be right about everything, but she is right about enough to cause any open-minded reader to think seriously about what the future looks like, especially for younger generations who will have to deal with the decisions we make – or don’t make – today.

This is hardly a novel insight. But it is striking that, for all our real understanding about the nature of the unprecedented challenge we collectively face, there is still an equally remarkable unwillingness or inability to act.

Like many before her, Herrmann thinks that salvation could come from “below”, because “parties do not lead their voters, they follow them”. But given what is currently happening in the United States and elsewhere, the durability of democracy itself is uncertain. In a world where democracy is already in retreat, the environmental emergencies that will inevitably increase without meaningful action could make authoritarian responses even more likely.

Still, what do I care? I’m a baby boomer with no kids. I live in one of the wealthiest, safest places on Earth. In Western Australia, we don’t even care about the rest of the country, let alone the rest of the world. Local politicians are planning to make an even bigger contribution to destroying the planet than we already do, because Woodside Energy wants to speed up the approval process for the controversial North West Shelf project. Good to know who’s running the state, at least.

It might have been useful if Herrmann had given a bit more attention to the politics of self-absorption or the slightly optimism-inducing literature on “degrowth”.

These are minor criticisms of what is a significant contribution to the literature on the climate crisis, though I fear The End of Capitalism may only be read by an already sympathetic audience. This remains a seemingly insurmountable obstacle faced by would-be reformers. I know it is considered de rigueur to strike an optimistic note when concluding discussions of this sort, but it is not easy, and may be dishonest.

There is no doubt that unmitigated climate change and environmental degradation will transform our lives and the political systems that circumscribe them. By the time they do, it may be too late to do anything useful, other than keep a lid on social breakdown. It won’t necessarily be the end of the world, but it may be the end of any human civilisation worthy of the name. Läs mer…

Working dogs and horses have tax-deductible upkeep. But Australia’s thousands of working cats go unrecognised

Cats and milk often go hand in hand in popular culture. But on dairy farms, cats do much more than enjoy a saucer of milk – their mousing skills are essential. That’s because dairy farms often have a problem with rats and mice due to their large grain and feed stores and a continuous supply of water and shelter.

Cats are thought to have been domesticated to protect granaries from rodents some 9,000 years ago. In our time, cats are widely used to keep rat and mouse numbers down around houses, farms, horse barns and factories.

But while you can make tax deductions on the upkeep of your working cats in the United Kingdom and United States, Australia’s thousands of working farm cats are not eligible. By contrast, farm dogs and horses in all three countries are recognised for the work they do. Their care is a tax-deductible business expense.

Our new research explores how cats are used as working animals on dairy farms. We found many dairy farmers preferred using cats over using poison for rodent control. For all farmers, the cost of sterilisation was too much, which can create problems of unchecked breeding. Registration fees are also a barrier.

If the care and upkeep of working cats was tax deductible, Australian farmers could manage their cats better without extra financial strain.

Rats and mice are a common problem for dairy farmers. This photo shows a mouse plague on a farm in New South Wales in 2021.
Rick Rycroft/AP

Why are working cats needed?

Dairy farming is Australia’s third-largest agricultural industry after cattle and wheat, and Australia is the world’s fourth-largest dairy exporter.

Within the industry, there are major changes underway. Small dairy farms are declining due to economic pressures. Financial returns are dropping and recent natural disasters have taken their toll.

To find out about how small and medium scale dairy farms rely on cats, we interviewed 15 dairy farmers in New South Wales and Queensland who had between three and 60 cats on their farms. Our sample of farmers is not representative, as we restricted the study to dairy farmers who had enrolled their cats in a free desexing program.

The dairy farmers we interviewed had come to rely heavily on their cats for ratting and mousing. Cats were not optional – they were essential for pest control.

Dairy farms are increasingly automated, with automatic milking machines taking over from humans. But rodents can cause real problems by nibbling through crucial wiring and rubber hosing, causing expensive and disruptive equipment breakdowns. As one farmer told us:

cats are cheaper than an electrician bill.

Another said:

we haven’t had [an equipment] breakdown in seven years since the cats turned up […] That on its own is worth thousands, plus no [downtime] with the milking machines out of action […] yeah, the pluses are just massive.

Dairy farms are increasingly automated – but rats and mice biting through wiring can derail a farmer’s plans.
Tracey Nearmy/AAP

Rodents also eat and contaminate cattle feed and can spread diseases to livestock and humans. More mice and rats means more snakes, posing risks to humans, working dogs and cattle.

One farmer told us:

the cats […] work everyday where baits are only ever any good while you’ve got bait out.

Most of the farmers we interviewed said they would never farm without cats. “We couldn’t do without them now. Otherwise, you’d be overrun with rats”, one said.

Of our 15 interviewees, ten had previously relied on rat poison. The farmers told us poison was less effective, expensive and unsafe. Rat poison poses risks to wildlife, working dogs, pets and children. Rats and mice are also developing resistance to some poisons. Rat poison has to be continuously applied and can be expensive.

One farmer said:

baiting’s not great for the other wildlife, and we’ve got dogs and I’d prefer not to use the baits.

By contrast, the farmers told us working cats offered a long-term, low-maintenance solution. Farmers reported fewer rodents and fewer snakes.

Farmers clearly saw their cats as working animals. As one said:

they’re dead set working cats because of […] the saving on repairs, the saving on baiting and yeah, the cats are doing their job, they’re basically working for
me.

While some farmers saw the cats as purely functional, others appreciated their companionship, especially during solitary early morning milking.

For some farmers, cats provide companionship during early morning milking.
Aleksandr Lupin/Shutterstock

Is it time for cat deductions?

While our interviewees reported strong upsides to using working cats, there are downsides.

Registration fees and permits can cost thousands of dollars, as an average sized dairy might have 20 or more working cats. There are other costs too, from desexing to tick treatment to vaccination to microchipping. Our recent research suggests desexing would reduce the risk from cats going feral.

As one farmer said:

the cost is too great to have to get all those cats done [sterilised] ourselves.

For farmers, these fees may be having unintended consequences such as added stress from financial worries and damage to mental health if farmers are forced to euthanise cats and kittens for population control. Waiving registration costs for working cats and providing funding to ensure cats are desexed would reduce the impact on wildlife.

At present, the Australian Tax Office recognises horses and dogs as working animals – provided they have been “trained for their role from a young age” and are not pets.

State and federal laws would have to be updated so working cats would be considered domestic cats, not feral cats, and biosecurity laws in states such as Queensland would have to be clarified. Tax rules would have to be changed too, as working cats would not meet the training requirement for working animals, given cats are natural predators of rodents.

But if these changes were made and farm cats were legally recognised, dairy farmers would have clear incentives to ensure their working cats are desexed, vaccinated and cared for. Läs mer…

Curious Kids: what was the biggest dinosaur that ever lived?

What actually was the biggest dinosaur?

– Zavier, 14, Tauranga, New Zealand.

Great question Zavier, and one that palaeontologists (scientists who study fossil animals and plants) are interested in all around the world.

And let’s face it, kids of all ages (and I include adults here) are fascinated by dinosaurs that break records for the biggest, the longest, the scariest or the fastest. It’s why, to this day, one of most famous dinosaurs is still Tyranosaurus rex, the tyrant king.

These record-breaking dinosaurs are part of the reason why the Jurassic Park movie franchise has been so successful. Just think of the scene where Dr Alan Grant (played by New Zealand actor Sam Neill) is stunned by the giant sauropod dinosaur rearing up to reach the highest leaves in the tree with its long neck.

But how do scientists work out how big and heavy a dinosaur was? And what were the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived?

Calculating dinosaur size

In an ideal world, calculating how big a dinosaur was would be easy – with a nearly complete skeleton. Standing next to the remarkable Triceratops skeleton on permanent display at Melbourne Museum makes you realise how gigantic and formidable these creatures were.

By measuring bone proportions (such as length, width or circumference) and plugging them into mathematical formulas and computer models, scientists can compare the measurements to those of living animals. They can then work out the likely size and weight of dinosaurs.

Calculating the size of dinosaurs is easy when you have near complete skeletons like this Triceratops at Melbourne Museum.
Ginkgoales via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NC-SA

Every palaeontologist has their own favourite formula or computer model. Some are more accurate than others, which can lead to heated arguments!

In palaeontology, however, we are not always blessed with nearly complete skeletons. In a process called “taphonomy” – basically, what happens to the bones after an animal dies – dinosaur skeletons can be broken up and bones lost.

The more fragmented the remains of a dinosaur are, the more error is introduced into size and weight estimates.

The reconstructed skeleton of a Patagotitan on display in London’s Natural History Museum.
Getty Images

Enter the titanosaurs

If we could travel back in time to South America during the Cretaceous period (about 143 million to 66 million years ago), we’d find a land ruled by a group of four-legged, long-necked and long-tailed, plant-eating sauropods. They would have towered over us, and the ground would shake with every step they took.

These were the titanosaurs. They reached their largest sizes during this period, before an asteroid crashed into what is now modern day Mexico 66 million years ago, making them extinct.

There are several contenders among the titanosaurs for the biggest dinosaur ever. Even the list below is controversial, with my palaeontology students pointing out several other possible contenders.

But based on six partial skeletons, the best estimate is for Patagotitan, which is thought to have been 31 meters long and to have weighed 50–57 tonnes.

A couple of others might have been as big or even bigger. Argentinosaurus has been calculated to be longer and heavier at 30–35 metres and 65–80 tonnes. And Puertasaurus was thought to be around 30 metres long and 50 tonnes.

But while the available bones of Argentinosaurus and Puertasaursus suggest reptiles of colossal size (the complete thigh bone of Argentinosaurus is 2.5 metres long!), there is currently not enough fossil material to be confident of those estimates.

An artist’s reconstruction of Spinosaurus, thought to have been the largest carnivorous dinosaur.
Getty Images

Spinosaurus rules North Africa

An ocean away from South America’s titanosaurs, Spinosaurus lived in what is now North Africa during the Cretaceous period.

By a very small margin, Spinosaurus is currently thought to have been the largest carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaur, weighing in at 7.4 tonnes and 14 meters long. Other Cretaceous giants are right up there, too, including Tyranosaurus rex from North America, Gigantosaurus from South America, and Carcharodontosaurus from North Africa.

Spinosaurus is unique among predatory dinosaurs in that it was semi-aquatic and had adapted to eating fish. You can see in the picture above how similar its skull shape was to a modern crocodile.

Palaeontology is now more popular than ever – maybe because of the ongoing Jurassic Park series – with a fossil “gold rush” occurring in the Southern Hemisphere.

The latest Jurassic Park movie – in cinemas from July 2025 – is about finding the biggest prehistoric species from land, sea, and air.

Members of the public (known as “fossil forecasters”) are making new discoveries all the time.

So, who knows? The next discovery might turn out to be a new record holder as the biggest or longest dinosaur to have ever lived. There can be only one!

Hello curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au Läs mer…