Phosphate wasn’t the only thing the miners found.

The deeper they went, the more fossils they found.

At one place, there was a wall full of bones and teeth.

Over the years, paleontologists have been digging up and studying the fossils found in the mine. Some even ended up in Germany.

But how had the animals got there?

Scientists think it might be one of two ways. Remember the bats, the ones who produced all the poo? These bones might be the remnants of their kills. That’s why there were a lot of small animals there – rodents, snakes, bandicoots, and other small marsupials. The second way was that they fell into the caves through sink holes and couldn’t get back out.

The first explanation covers the shards on the walls. The second covers the bigger things they found. We’ll see what they were next.