2026

Creatures of the Palaeozoic

First Day Cover

Overview

This issue features prehistoric creatures that lived on our continent around 500 million years ago, in the early Cambrian Period of the Palaeozoic Era. At this time, organisms had not yet emerged from the water to live on land. They had, however, developed skeletons, shells and other external and internal hard structures through the process of biomineralization. This evolution started an “arms race”, where some animals developed hard body parts to prey on other organisms. These prey animals in turn evolved features such as spines, hard coverings, digging and fast-swimming mechanisms to avoid being eaten.
The fossils of the extraordinary early Cambrian creatures on the stamps were found in Emu Bay Shale deposits on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. This stamp issue represents the latest in palaeontological research.

The Stamps

$1.70 Nesonektris aldridgei
Nesonektris aldridgei was a large vetulicolian (swimming chordate) that grew to around 18 centimetres in length. It had a streamlined body, a mouth opening at the front and a flexible tail probably used to propel it away from predators.
$1.70 “Emu Bay Shale Monster”
The four-centimetre-long lobopodian, informally known as the Emu Bay Shale Monster was a soft-bodied, velvet worm-like creature with protective spines on its back and body segments bearing pairs of spiny filter-feeding legs in the anterior body and short anchoring lobopods (stubby legs) in the posterior part.

The predatory Redlichia rex reached around 25 centimetres in length. Bigger than a dinner plate, this species is the largest trilobite from the Cambrian Period yet found in Australia. A predator, it had formidable legs with spines used for crushing and shredding food. As shown on the stamp, it may have hunted other trilobites.

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Creatures of the Palaeozoic

$1.70 Nesonektris aldridgei

$1.70 “Emu Bay Shale Monster”

$1.70 Anomalocaris daleyae

The fierce-looking Anomalocaris daleyae was, at around 50 centimetres long, one of the largest animals in the oceans at that time, and had swimming flaps running along its body, large compound eyes, and a single pair of segmented frontal appendages used to grasp prey.

$1.70 Redlichia rex