A mythical megafauna creature, inspired by paleontological discoveries in the sinkholes and caves of the Limestone Coast region will be brought to life as the Mount Gambier Beacon Art Project, after it was endorsed as the successful EOI application at the October Council meeting.
Artists Mitch Walker and Tom Proctor of Huna design studio in Melbourne came up with the idea for the unique creature after a conversation about the history of the local landscape.
"I was at a family wedding and I was speaking with my aunty Jo who is a palaeontologist. I asked her what she was up to, and she told me she had been in Mount Gambier and started showing me all these incredible photos of her cave diving and all the things that she found. She showed me photos of all these creatures and ancient megafauna," Tom said.
"One of them was this thing called a Palorchestes Panei which is a sort of marsupial ant eater, a big, lumbering kind of ant eater creature. So that was a seed for the idea right there."
