Kangaroos over 2.5-metres tall with super long fingers, wombat-like animals the size of a rhinoceros with formidable projecting teeth, Komodo Dragon-style predators, nimble but giant possum-like creatures with hooded claws and razor sharp teeth, efficient predator carnivores resembling small tigers, huge powerfully-built flightless birds. It sounds like the latest line-up of characters in a Hollywood blockbuster but instead, it is the content of Australia Post’s latest stamp issue which takes a glimpse back in time when Australia was ruled by imposing creatures known as megafauna.

To celebrate this fascinating period in Australian wildlife, ranging back millions of years, Australia Post’s annual Stamp Collecting Month explores six of the most amazing species to roam our country.

Australian illustrator Peter Trusler worked closely with palaeontologists to create striking visual representations of how these animals most probably appeared. Although fossilised bones helped dictate the species’ anatomical structure, to a degree Trusler used educative guesswork when determining characteristics such as the colour, possible texture and length of feathers, fur and hair.

Australia Post hopes Trusler’s painstaking interpretations, which are as much scientific as they are artistic, will inspire further interest in this chapter in Australian wildlife, as Philatelic Group Manager Noel Leahy explains.

“Stamp Collecting Month is a chance for Australia Post to educate and excite children through stamps about intriguing topics such as megafauna. We hope that these graphic impressions encourage classroom debate and heated conversation about Australian megafauna, and encourage a generation of new stamp collectors along the way” said Mr Leahy.

The issue, which will be released Wednesday on 1 October 2008, features six of the most remarkable Australian megafauna:

• Genyornis newtoni, a large bird reminiscent of emus and cassowaries but in fact more closely related to ducks, geese and swans.
• Diprotodon optatum, a giant wombat with two prominent projecting teeth.
• Procoptodon goliah, probably the largest of all kangaroos and weighing upwards of 200kg.
• Megalania prisca, a massive lizard species.
• Thylacoleo carnifex, from possum ancestry but a more destructive and predatory version.
• Thylacinus cyanocephalus, or more commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger.

The Australian Megafauna stamp series will be available in a Minisheet, First Day Covers with gummed stamps, adhesive stamps or minisheet, Stamp Pack, Maxicards, Prestige Booklet, Medallion Cover, Booklet of 10 and Roll of 200. Megafauna stamps will be available from CBD and other participating Australia Post outlets around the country from 1 October 2008.

Australians overseas will be able to purchase the stamps on line at www.auspost.com.au/stamps.