An image of a person wearing sunglasses and a dark jumper, holding a lizard in the Australian desert, beneath a blue sky

Dr Kailah Thorn

(She/Her)

Technical Officer – Terrestrial Vertebrates

Qualifications

BSc PhD

Research

  • Taxonomy and systematics of fossil lizards and snakes, primarily skinks 
  • Extinction and palaeoecology of Cenozoic vertebrate communities 
  • Comparative osteology of reptiles 
  • Public engagement and media coverage of research on evolution and lizards. 
  • Co-supervision of honours and post-graduate students at local and national universities.

Collections

  • Manage the terrestrial vertebrate collections (birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians) 
  • Facilitate loans of WA Museum vertebrate skins, tissues, skeletons and whole organisms with other institutions 
  • Registration of new specimens into the collections

Services (to other bodies)

  • Chair of the WA Mineral and Gem Emblem Selection Committee 
  • General Committee Member & Past Chair – WA Division of the Geological Society of Australia 
  • Member of the IUCN Skink Specialist Group

Selected Publications

Kailah's full publication list can be found here

Media & public engagement 

How to hunt fossils responsibly: 5 tips from a professional palaeontologist (2021). The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/how-to-hunt-fossils-responsibly-5-tips-from-a-professional-palaeontologist-156861

Meet the biggest and most bizarre skink ever found in Australia. It became extinct 47,000 years ago (2023). The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/meet-the-biggest-and-most-bizarre-skink-ever-found-in-australia-it-became-extinct-47-000-years-ago-206764

Prehistoric skinks: The evolution of skinks in Australia. (2022) Australian Age of Dinosaurs Magazine.

Research Publications

Ryan, H. E., Travouillon, K.J., Milne, L.A., Martin, S.K., Thorn, K.M. & Whisson, C.S. (2024) A new Bothriembryon from the Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia, with insights on the age of Bothriembryon praecursor from Kangaroo Well, Northern Territory, Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1080/03115518.2024.2323472

Thorn, K.M., Fusco, D.A., Hutchinson, M.N., Gardner, M.G., Clayton, J.L., Prideaux, G.J. and Lee, M.S.Y. 2023. A giant armoured skink from Australia expands lizard morphospace and the scope of the Pleistocene extinctions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 290: 20230704 http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.0704

Thorn, K.M. ‘Pups’ of the Swan Coastal Plain, in Thylacine, The History, Ecology and Loss of the Tasmanian Tiger, CSIRO Publishing 137-139.