LOCATION FILE
Murrumbidgee near Balranald — the 'bunyip skull' of 1846
FOLLOWBalranald, NSW
DIRECTIONS →OVERVIEW
In January 1846 a settler took an unusual skull from the banks of the Murrumbidgee River near Balranald, New South Wales. First reports said it belonged to something unknown to science; the squatter who found it said every Aboriginal person shown it called it a bunyip.
HISTORY
By July 1847 experts including W. S. Macleay and Professor Richard Owen had identified it as the deformed foetal skull of a foal or calf. The Australian Museum in Sydney displayed it for two days anyway; visitors flocked to it, and the Sydney Morning Herald reported many people speaking of their own bunyip sightings. The explorer William Hovell called it a 'katen-pai'.
REPORTED ACTIVITY
EXPLAINED. The skull was a malformed foal or calf. The display shows how a find can feed a wave of reports.
VISITING
Riverbank near the town of Balranald; no marked site.
SITE PLAN
UPLOAD A PLANNo plan on file yet.
A plan of the building or grounds is what a second team opens on a phone in the dark. Going there? Volunteer to map it, then upload your plan.
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
INVESTIGATION RECORD
0 GROUPS · 0 VISITS
No group has logged an investigation here yet.
HISTORICAL RECORD · 0 CITED ENTRIES
SIGN IN TO CONTRIBUTENo cited entries yet. Deeds, newspaper reports, census lines, photographs, ledgers — anything with a source.
COMMUNITY EVIDENCE
SIGN IN TO VIEWEvidence filed at this location — photos, recordings, documents, notes — is visible to signed-in investigators.
GROUP FINDINGS