Those who venture into Foul Air Cave, below Buchan township in eastern Victoria, quickly realise how it got its ominous name. In its deepest chambers, bacteria consume oxygen and excrete organic gases to produce a toxic stench.

The cave is also a natural pitfall trap. Its water-worn entrance offers no escape to any creature unlucky enough to tumble in. The smell of death clings to your nostrils as you navigate vertiginous drops and calf-deep, sucking mud.

Tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago during the Pleistocene Epoch, Foul Air Cave accumulated remains of diverse, often-giant mammals known collectively as Australia’s megafauna.

One of these mammals was the giant echidna Megalibgwilia owenii, as we report in a new paper published today in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. We recognised this extinct monotreme, twice the size of Australian echidnas today, from a newly identified fossil collected almost 120 years ago.

And the specimen is enough to verify for the first time that this species once roamed Ice Age Victoria, spanning a 1,000 kilometre gap in its previously known distribution.

Scores of ancient bones

The first scientific expeditions to Foul Air Cave were made in 1906–7 by Frank Palmer Spry who worked for what’s now called Museums Victoria, local caves curator Francis Moon, and geologist Thomas Sergeant Hall.

They were among the first to enter the cave. They encountered scores of fossil bones loosely buried in damp earth, including powerful, clawed mega-marsupial palorchestids and predatory marsupial “lions”.

They deposited their finds in the state collection, now housed at Melbourne Museum.

Over a century later, the fossils of Foul Air Cave have granted us a further insight into deep time.

A robust creature

Previously described fossils of Megalibgwilia owenii derive from a handful of sites in Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales. They’re sparse, too: one well-preserved skeleton, four skulls of varying completeness, and a range of isolated bones.

Together, they illustrate a robust mammal a metre long and weighing in at 15 kilograms – roughly as big as a four-year-old child.

The meaning of its name is straightforward. Mega-libgwil-ia joins the ancient Greek prefix “mega-”, meaning large or mighty, with “libgwil”, the name for the echidna in the language of the Wemba Wemba people of northern Victoria and south-eastern NSW.

We can combine this with the species epithet owenii (acknowledging prolific 19th century anatomist Sir Richard Owen) to coin a common name: “Owen’s giant echidna”.

Using its fossil remains as a guide, Owen’s giant echidna most resembled the long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus), which today occupies the wet tropical cloud forests of New Guinea. Its broad limbs and shoulders bore prominent bony scars indicating it was more heavily muscled than other monotremes. It also had a wide, long and straight untoothed beak, with bony ridges across its palate.

This suite of differences implies Megalibgwilia was adapted to a different lifestyle than its modern relatives. One can imagine it tearing to pieces fallen logs or digging hard soils to seek out moth and beetle larvae, rather than feeding on termites or earthworms.

A fossil awaits its finder

Our new fossil came to light during the systematic documentation and maintenance of thousands of fossil bones, teeth, and skeletons preserved by Museums Victoria.

But even this obscure seven centimetre fragment of skull was sufficient to identify the unique proportions of M. owenii – especially when we examined material in museum collections across Australia.

As well as identifying the fossil, we also researched its connection to Foul Air Cave by drawing on collection notes, hand-drawn maps, diaries and public newspaper archives.

These historical ephemera established Spry as the fossil’s collector. And they inspired a return to the cave in his footsteps.

Ready for re-examination

Spry and Moon wore their everyday outfits of breeches, jacket and waistcoat for their fossicking. They lit their path with candles or kerosene lamps, and entrusted their life to stiff, heavy nautical rope. The trained geologist Hall never ventured into the cave himself. Under those conditions, who would judge him?

By comparison, modern caving is a technical affair. Brilliant headlamps illuminate entire caverns. Heavy-duty nylon oversuits protect from skin-shredding rocky surfaces. And the climbing ropes and devices are strong enough to suspend a small car.

The collaboration between Spry, Moon and Hall combined an informed perspective, fluent local knowledge, and technical know-how to succeed. Despite obvious advances in technology and disciplinary knowledge, our success is rooted in the same foundation as theirs – curiosity and community spirit.

During my own investigations at Buchan, families spanning generations have shared local history and acted as subterranean guides. Parks Victoria rangers have facilitated and overseen work on public reserves. Recreational cavers from the Victorian Speleological Association have been a wellspring of enthusiastic support.

The long residence of this specimen in Victoria’s state collection epitomises how, thanks to past work, palaeontological discoveries arise from “collection-based” fieldwork as often as investigations outdoors.

And if one illuminating specimen can lie unnoticed across a century, why not others?

Sparse fossil bones of large, slender echidnas, seemingly distinct from Megalibgwilia owenii, have been noted from Victoria and South Australia. These warrant re-examination to test if Owen’s giant echidna adapted to different conditions over space or time, or if another unknown species co-occupied the landscape.

The latter option is intriguing in light of the proposition that Zaglossus may even have occupied northern Australia until as late as the 20th century.

If true, then surely one of its ancestors awaits recognition – either among the landscape or preserved carefully among the nation’s public scientific assets.

Tim Ziegler, Collection Manager, Vertebrate Palaeontology, Museums Victoria Research Institute

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This is an article from Curious Kids, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky! You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids.

Why does English have so many different spelling rules? – Melania P, age 12, Strathfield.

English spelling has been evolving for over a thousand years and the muddle we’re in today is the fall-out of many different events that have taken place over this time.

A bad start

It was a rocky beginning for English spelling. Quite simply, the 23-letter Roman alphabet has never been adequate — even Old English (spoken 450-1150) had 35 or so sounds, and our sound system is now even bigger.

More spelling problems came in when French scribes introduced new spelling conventions — their own of course, and not always helpful. Using “c” instead of “s” for words like city was messy because “c” also represented the “k” sound in words like cat.

And then printing arrived in the 15th century — and with it more mess. William Caxton (who set up the presses in the first place) liked Dutch spellings and so established the “gh” in ghost and ghastly. Some printers were European and they introduced favourite spellings too from their own languages. Not terribly helpful either!

Those pesky silent letters

One of the biggest problems for English spelling has always been changes in pronunciation. Printing helped to stablise the spelling of words, but then some sounds changed their shape, and others even disappeared altogether. Think of those silent letters in words such as walk, through, write, right, sword, know, gnat — these were once pronounced.

If only the printer Caxton had been born a couple of centuries later, or if these sound changes had occurred a couple of centuries earlier, our spelling would be much truer to pronunciation.

And now comes another little wrinkle in this story – there’s a bunch of silent letters that were never actually pronounced. They appeared because of linguistic busybodies who wanted to make the language look more respectable. This caused some serious mess.

Take how we spell the word rhyme. When we swiped the word from French, it had a much more sensible look — rime. But this was changed to rhyme to give it a more classy classical look (like rhythm) – an interesting idea, but hardly helpful for someone trying to spell the word!

The 16th and 17th centuries saw many extra letters introduced in this way. Think of the “b” added to debt to make a link to Latin debitum. Now, the “b” might be justified in the word debit that we stole directly from Latin, but it was the French who gave us dette.

The “b” consonant was a mistake, and now we accuse poor old debt of having lost it through sloppy pronunciation!

Let’s make spelling more sensible

And so it is from this haphazard evolution that we end up with the spelling system we have.

But you know, there are in fact over 80% of words spelled according to regular patterns. So wholesale change is not what we want. However simple improvements could certainly be made without any major upheaval.

We could iron out inconsistencies such as humOUr versus humOrous. To introduce uniform -or spellings would be a painless reform (well, perhaps not painless, since many people are quite attached to the -our in words like humour)

We could also restore earlier spellings like rime and dette, and while we’re at it give psychology and philosophy a sensible look by spelling them sykology and filosofy.

So now, you can see the problem. No matter how silly spellings are, people get attached to them, and new spellings – even sensible ones – never seem to get a foot in the door.

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Kate Burridge, Professor of Linguistics, Monash University

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Why are the letters on the keyboard not in alphabetical order?? – Baker, age 9, Arrowtown, New Zealand.

Great question! That question really puzzled me when I was a kid. And so as a grown-up, I decided to research it and write a paper about it.

Let’s turn the clock back. About 150 years ago, all letters and business papers were written by hand. Most likely they were written using a pen that had to be dipped in ink every word or two. Writing was slow and messy.

Then some clever inventors built a machine for typing. The first typewriters were big heavy metal machines that worked a bit like a piano.

Have you ever seen the inside of a real piano? You press a key and some clever levers make a felt hammer hit just the right piano string to make a note.

Early typewriters were similar. They had all these levers with a metal alphabet letter at the end of it. You had to press a letter key quite hard to make the metal lever fly across and hit the paper. Hit the A key and the A lever would hit the paper and type A. The paper then shifted a bit to the left, so the next key would hit in just the right place next to the A. Press more keys and you could type a word, or even a whole book.

The first machine had the letter keys in alphabetical order. The trouble was that if you hit two keys quickly the levers would jam. Jams were most likely when the two keys were close together on the keyboard. Rearranging the letters could reduce jams.

Christopher Sholes was an American inventor who was most successful in reducing jams. He tried various arrangements, always trying to reduce the need to type two keys that were close together. The best arrangement he could find was similar to the QWERTY keyboard we all use today. (Look at the top row of a keyboard to see why it’s called QWERTY.)

He sold his invention to the Remington Company in the United States. In the 1870s, that company built and sold the first commercially successful typewriters. They used the QWERTY keyboard.

For 100 years or so after the Remington typewriter arrived, vast numbers of people all over the world trained to become touch typists (meaning they could type even without looking much at the keyboard). They were employed to type letters and all other kinds of things for business and government. Because so many people became so skilled at using QWERTY, it became very difficult to get everyone to change to any other key arrangement.

Many other key arrangements have been tried. Some are claimed to be easier to learn or faster to use than QWERTY. But none has proved good enough to beat QWERTY. It seems that we are stuck with this layout, even if jams are no longer a problem.

QWERTY was developed for the English language. Some other languages use variations. For example, AZERTY is commonly used for French, QWERTZ for German, and QZERTY for Italian. Perhaps you can find someone from India, Thailand, Japan, Korea, or China. Ask them to show you the keyboard they use in their language.

You’ll never regret being able to touch type

Now, on any keyboard, feel the F and J keys carefully and find some tiny bumps. Place your first fingers on those keys, and your other fingers along the same row. Your left fingers should be on ASDF and your right on JKL;. These are called the “home keys”.

Keep your fingers resting lightly on the home keys. Type other letters by moving just one finger up or down and perhaps a little sideways. Learn how to do that quickly, without watching your fingers, and you can touch type!

When I was a teenager, I owned a typewriter. I made a cardboard shield to stop me seeing my fingers as I typed. I used clothes pegs to fix it to the typewriter. Then I found a touch-typing book and started to practise, making sure that I kept my fingers on the home keys and always used the correct finger to type each letter. After lots of practice, I could touch type. I love being able to touch type. It has helped me all my life, first as a student, then in everything I have done since.

Now with computers it’s easier than ever to learn to touch type, even if QWERTY at first seems strange. There’s lots of good software to help (your school may have some), some of it feeling like a game.

Find software that you like, and put in some practice. It may seem hard at first, but persist and you will soon get good at it. Find a friend or two and do it together. Perhaps make it a competition. You’ll never regret being able to touch type.

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Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

Geoff Cumming, Emeritus Professor, La Trobe University

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I am wondering why clouds are sometimes white and sometimes grey and why rain only comes from grey clouds. – Fiona, age 6, Eltham, Victoria.

Hi Fiona, this is a great question!

It may seem simple, but to answer this we need to know some things about clouds and light.

First, we need to understand a little bit about the way light works.

Light is made of little particles that move in waves, like the waves you see at the beach. Some of the light particles make red light, others green light, others blue light. In fact, they make up all the colours in the rainbow. When all of the light particles of different colours mix, they make white light.

Second, we need to know a little bit about clouds.

Clouds are made of little drops of water and, if it is cold enough, little crystals of ice and beautiful snowflakes. Compared to light particles, the cloud drops are huge! Because the drops of water are much bigger than the waves of the light particles, they bounce all the different colours together to make white light. That is why some clouds look white.

You also asked why some clouds are grey? When a cloud grows bigger, all the water drops and ice crystals bump into each other, stick together and become bigger.

Eventually, they get so big and the cloud so tall that not all of the light particles can get through the cloud. This is just like your shadow, where you are stopping some of the light from reaching the ground. That is when the cloud becomes grey.

When the cloud drops become big enough, they stop a lot of light and the cloud looks very dark and grey. When enough drops stick together, they become big enough to fall to the ground as drops of rain. Only clouds that are tall with big water drops can make rain, but they also stop most of the light, which makes them look grey.

There are many different types of clouds, not just white and grey clouds. Weather scientists (called meteorologists) have written a big atlas to help people all over the world recognise different kinds. Some look like waves, others like fish scales, and some look like UFOs!

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. You can:

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Justin Peter, Senior Climatologist, Australian Bureau of Meteorology

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How do we get allergic to food? – Younus, age 9, Perth

That’s a really interesting question, and one that many scientists and doctors are also trying to understand better.

It all starts with the immune system. Every person has one - a group of cells, tissues and organs in the body that helps you fight infections.

It does this by fighting off bugs that might make you sick when they enter your body. This is very important both in keeping you well, as well as helping you recover when you do get sick with an infection.

Allergies happen when the immune system starts overreacting to other things which would not usually make you sick. These can include dust, pollens, pets, and as you mentioned, foods.

For example, in someone who is not allergic to cow’s milk, the immune system doesn’t react when they drink the milk.

But if you are allergic to cow’s milk, when you drink it your immune system overreacts and can cause you to have a rash, swelling or trouble breathing.

Passing down allergies

If there are people in your family with allergies, such as asthma, eczema, hay fever or food allergies, then you are more likely to have allergies too.

This means that allergies may be in the genes that are passed down from parents to children, just like there are genes that pass down the colour of your eyes and hair.

Some foods commonly cause allergies, such as cow’s milk, egg, wheat, nuts and shellfish.

It may be that the age when you first try these foods can affect whether you go on to become allergic to that food, and a lot of research is happening to figure out if that is true.

Over the next few years, I think we will understand this question better, and hopefully be able to make food allergies less common.

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Lucinda Berglund, Clinical Senior Lecturer University of Sydney, Immunologist and Immunopathologist Westmead Hospital and NSW Health Pathology, University of Sydney

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Why can I sometimes see the Moon in the daytime? – Sebastian, age 4, Brisbane.

Thank you, Sebastian, for your great question.

The Moon can be seen at different times during the day and night - but when and where you see it depends on the phase of the Moon.

If you watch the Moon over a month, you will notice it gradually changing shape, from a crescent to a full circle, then back to a crescent again. If you pay close attention, you will notice that its position in the sky also changes.

You’ve heard of sunrise and sunset, but did you know there’s also moonrise and moonset? Here are the moonrise and moonset times for Brisbane, where you live.

The time of moonrise and moonset and the shape of the Moon change throughout the month, depending on where the Moon is in space.

The Moon moves around the Earth every month. But while it’s doing that, it is also spinning like a toy top – we call that spinning bit “rotating on its axis”.

The time it takes the Moon to rotate on its axis is the same time it takes to complete one trip (or “orbit”) around the Earth. This is why we always see the same side of the Moon.

It also follows a similar path across the sky as the Sun. As it goes around the Earth, sunlight bounces off the Moon and toward us from different angles.

When the Moon is close to the Sun in the sky, the Sun is too bright for us to see it. As it moves away from the Sun in the sky each day, we see it emerge as a thin crescent. This called the New Moon.

If you look closely, you can see the faint glow of the “dark” part of the Moon. This is sunshine that is bouncing off of the Earth’s atmosphere back onto the Moon. Some Aboriginal groups see this as the spirit of the Moon-man.

Each day we see more of the Moon’s lit side as it gets bigger and bigger. When the moon rises at midday, the left half of it is lit up. We call this the First Quarter.

Each day, the Moon rises about 50 minutes later than it did the day before. When it’s a Full Moon, it rises at sunset.

When the Sun rises in the early morning, the Full Moon sets. This is the only phase when the Moon is in the sky all night.

The Moon starts to fade again. When it rises at midnight, only the right half of the Moon is lit up, which we call Last Quarter. It moves closer to the Sun each day, turning back to a crescent and fading away until it disappears. It stays “hidden” for three days before it emerges again as a New Moon.

Hawaiian people have a special name for every day of the lunar month. You can learn their song to help you remember!

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Duane Hamacher, Associate Professor, The University of Melbourne

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How do glasses help you see? – Andy, age 5, Vincentia.

Hi Andy, and thank you for your question about glasses.

You’ve asked this at a very good time because more and more people are needing to wear glasses, including young children, and we don’t really know why.

Our eyes let us see because light enters each eye, and the eye then creates a message that goes to the brain.

The eyeball itself doesn’t actually “see” – the brain sees. The eyeballs just take pictures, like two little cameras. To see properly, each eyeball needs to send the light that enters it onto a very exact spot inside the eyeball, called the retina. If the light falls onto the wrong place, your vision will be blurry.

Many people don’t need glasses and can see just fine. This is because their eyeballs are focusing light properly onto the retina.

However, some people have eyeballs that are too long. They are called “shortsighted”. For these people, things far away, like street signs or the classroom blackboard, can look blurry.

Other people have eyeballs that are too short. They are called “farsighted” and things close to them, like a book or a mobile phone, can look blurry.

Both shortsighted and farsighted people need glasses to help them see clearly.

They work by helping the eyeball to focus light onto the correct place, the retina. Only then can the eye see clearly.

Maybe you have a grandma or grandpa who wears glasses whenever they are reading books or using their mobile phone. When people get older, they usually become a little bit farsighted because a part of their eye called the lens becomes stiff and doesn’t work properly.

More and more young people in the world are needing to wear glasses.

We’re not sure why, but some scientists think that children who spend too much time inside are more likely to need glasses. We don’t know if it’s because they aren’t getting enough sunlight or if they’re simply reading too much or playing too many video games when they get home.

Most children in China are shortsighted and need glasses to see things far away. The Chinese government is so worried about this that they are making sure all students spend some time outdoors instead of just being inside the classroom.

Glasses can cost lots of money, and children who need glasses but don’t wear them don’t do as well in school. Once you need glasses, you usually need them forever - your eyes won’t go back to normal on their own.

I hope that one day we can find out why people’s eyeballs become too long or too short and then we can stop people needing to wear glasses in the first place. Then people will never lose or forget their glasses ever again!

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Jason Yosar, Associate Lecturer, School of Medicine, The University of Queensland

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