South Australian Museum - North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000

Biography

Born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia; BSc(Hons) in Geology and Palaeontology (1967) from the University of Adelaide; Masters degree (M.S.) in Vertebrate Paleontology from Wyoming University (1969). Appointed first Curator of Palaeontology at the South Australian Museum, 1969. Retired 2001.

Fieldwork began with excavations at Naracoorte (1970 ¡V 1982), Lake Callabonna (1970), Lake Palankarinna and the Lake Eyre and Callabonna basins (1972 ¡V 2004).

Research interests:

Tertiary fossil plants of Woomera area, Triassic vertebrates, Cretaceous (opalised) vertebrates, Cainozoic vertebrates ¡V shark teeth, crocodiles, monotremes, marsupials (specifically ektopodontids, pseudocheirids, phascolarctids, vombatids, wynyardiids, macropodoids), dugongs, cetaceans.

Major Publications: (Top 5)

Pledge, N.S. (2003) A new species of Muramura Pledge (Wynyardiidae: Marsupialia) from the Middle Tertiary of the Callabonna Basin, northeastern South Australia. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 13 (279): 541ƒ{555.

Pledge, N. S. (2005) A new species of early Oligocene cetacean from Port Willunga, South Australia. Proceedings of the Conference of Australasian Vertbrate Evolution, Palaeontology and Systematics. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 51 (1): 123 - 133.

Pledge, N. S. (2005) The Riversleigh wynyardiids. Proceedings of the Conference of Australasian Vertbrate Evolution, Palaeontology and Systematics. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 51 (1): 135 - 169.

Pledge, N. S. (2006) Sirenians in southern Australia ¡V first fossil record. Alcheringa Special Issue 1: 295¡V305.

Kear, B. P. and Pledge, N. S. (2007). A new fossil kangaroo from the Oligocene-Miocene Etadunna Formation of Ngama Quarry, Lake Palankarinna, South Australia. Australian Journal of Zoology, 55: 331¡V339. (appeared May, 2008)