3D database offers virtual access to animal skeletons and bones of iconic Australian wildlife

For the first time, the remarkable features of Australia’s unique wildlife—from platypus, bilby, kangaroo, koala and emu to mammals gone extinct—are available for all to see, via their bones and skeletons in a new free online collection.

Using 3D imaging technology, Flinders University and partners have launched the “Ozboneviz” virtual database, which goes “inside” the anatomy of dozens of Australia’s most famous animals for the public, schools, researchers, artists, nature-lovers and others to access.

Described in a new article published in the journal BioScience, the new collection of more than 1,600 specimens has been collated and uploaded on to the high-tech MorphoSource repository, by Flinders University Associate Professor Vera Weisbecker’s “Bones and Biodiversity Lab” and colleagues around Australia.

“We are all fascinated by bones and this new database is a way to go behind the glass cases at the museum, see specimens up close and understand their special features,” says Associate Professor Weisbecker, who hopes

Ozboneviz will fuel better scientific and public appreciation of Australia’s amazing mammals around the world.

“Australia leads the world in mammal extinctions, but we are losing far more than a few fluffy rat-like critters. Our mammals have evolved in isolation for nearly 40 million years—there is simply nothing like them anywhere else.

“Victorian-era scientists deemed Australian wildlife ‘primitive,” but now we can marvel at the elongated leg bones that make the kangaroo the largest hopping animal ever, or the bizarre shovel-like arms of the marsupial mole, and chances are that you will change your mind!

“3D models of skeletons are a charismatic way to engage adults and children alike with Australia’s precious fauna, making it a key asset in science communication and school education.”

“Our core team spent three years traveling to four Australian museums and three universities. We mostly used surface scanners to digitize ten key bones of 189 iconic Australasian species: the skull, shoulder blade, pelvis and limb bones,” explains CABAH and Flinders archaeologist Dr. Erin Mein.

Jacob van Zoelen, Ph.D. candidate at Flinders University and digitization manager, says, “We used a structured light scanner to image the outside of most bones. But for particularly rare species, like the presumed-extinct ngudlukanta or desert rat-kangaroo, we opted for computed tomography, because it also images the internal structure of the bones at resolutions of 10–50 micrometers.”

The resulting 3D files are deposited on the MorphoSource platform, which is important for scientists because it has the same rigorous cataloging as any physical museum. But the files are open access, with anyone able to download them for non-commercial use.

To facilitate public access, Dr. Mein also built a Sketchfab site with more than 500 of the most precious and informative bones, with examples including the skull of an extinct marsupial tiger, or thylacine, the pig-footed bandicoot, desert-rat kangaroo and rare marsupial mole.

“This means the public can compare the cranium of a fox to a thylacine and dingo, for example, and compare the size and shape of limb bones of common marsupials,” adds Dr. Mein. “There are also plenty of annotations to help non-specialist users learn about vertebrate anatomy and compare anatomical attributes between species.”

As well as the focus on large native mammals such as kangaroos, possums, and bandicoots, the database includes some non-native mammals that people tend to come across, like goats and sheep, as well as a selection of large birds, lizards and frogs.

The MorphoSource collection includes a number of specimens with interesting features or stories, including:

• The skeleton of Billie, the Port River dolphin well known to Adelaide residents.
• An Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi)—previously considered extinct but was reobserved in the wild around the time the specimen was scanned.
• The extinct pig-footed bandicoot (Chaeropus ecaudatus), the only marsupial with something like hooves.
• CT scan of two whole marsupial moles (genus Notoryctes), which is Australia’s “weirdest skeleton,” according to Associate Professor Weisbecker.

Associate Professor Weisbecker says there is no Australian precedent for open-access databases of this kind.

“Hopefully this will lead the way to an even wider use of digitization to make Australia’s unique local biodiversity accessible to the global public.”