West Coast Fossil Park

West Coast Fossil Park Visit the West Coast Fossil Park close to Langebaan, Western Cape, South Africa. Daily dig tours.

See the fossils of bears, sabre-tooth cats, short-necked giraffes and the many other animals which inhabited the west coast area some 5 million years ago.

01/06/2026

Moon rise and sun set from The West Coast Fossil Park.

“It was quite beautiful to see. A lovely, calm evening with birds coming in to roost, including 3 blue cranes.”

Fossil Friday: A sabre-toothed discovery at the West Coast Fossil Park 🦴🗿 Around 5.2 million years ago, the landscape of...
29/05/2026

Fossil Friday: A sabre-toothed discovery at the West Coast Fossil Park 🦴🗿
Around 5.2 million years ago, the landscape of Langebaanweg (now the West Coast Fossil Park) was home to a very different South Africa — a rich mosaic of riverine forests, open grasslands, and thriving wildlife.
Among its most fascinating predators were the sabre-toothed cats, revealed through recent research to include not just known species, but two previously unknown ones:
Lokotunjailurus chinsamyae (slide 1)
Dinofelis werdelini (slide 2)

These discoveries highlight Langebaanweg as one of the most important fossil sites in the world for understanding ancient African ecosystems and the evolution of apex predators. The site preserves an exceptionally diverse snapshot of life during a time of major environmental change, helping scientists reconstruct how climate and habitat shifts shaped the animals that once roamed the West Coast.
Experience this lost world for yourself, at the West Coast Fossil Park – where every fossil tells a story 5.2 million years in the making. 🌍✨

27/05/2026

What if you could time-travel… back 5.2 million years? ⏳
In most places, we’d have no idea what you’d see or hear. Millions of years can completely reshape landscapes, animals – even coastlines.
But at the West Coast Fossil Park, we can paint that picture.
You’re standing in dry sandveld… and suddenly, it’s gone.
A vast lagoon stretches out in front of you, cutting through the land where the Park stands today.
Those white fossil buildings in the distance?
They disappear, replaced by a shallow riverbed. At some point, hundreds of carcasses will wash into that riverbed… and become the fossils we uncover millions of years later.
The lagoon flows towards a coastline much closer than today’s Atlantic. Around it, dense subtropical vegetation – palms, cycads, ferns, and thick grasslands – buzzes with life.
Then you hear it.
Bird calls. Insects.
And a trumpet. 🐘

Don’t forget! There’s a whole world beneath your feet.Our Subterranean Display brings the unseen to life, showcasing the...
25/05/2026

Don’t forget! There’s a whole world beneath your feet.
Our Subterranean Display brings the unseen to life, showcasing the tiny creatures that live below the surface, magnified up to 150 times their actual size.

From insects to burrowing mammals, these small but mighty species play a vital role in the ecosystem, both today and millions of years ago.

Visit us and experience it today.

Fossil Friday: Neanderthals & humans: not rivals, but partners 🤝New research is rewriting the story of our past…At Tinsh...
22/05/2026

Fossil Friday: Neanderthals & humans: not rivals, but partners 🤝New research is rewriting the story of our past…At Tinshemet Cave, scientists found that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals didn’t just coexist – they collaborated.
The key evidence of collaboration comes from the fact that they used the same stone tool shaping techniques, suggesting knowledge was being shared rather than developed in isolation.
They also found repeated use of ochre pigment and structured burial practices, which appear in both groups in very similar ways – indicating shared symbolic or ritual behaviour. In some burials, ochre was deliberately placed with the dead, alongside carefully arranged bodies, pointing to common cultural traditions rather than separate ones.
Taken together, the toolmaking overlap, shared symbolic practices, and close proximity all suggest these groups weren’t simply coexisting – they were interacting, exchanging ideas, and likely learning directly from one another.
💡 Innovation wasn’t driven by isolation – but by connection. These interactions may have shaped the cultural and technological foundations of humanity itself.

Spend the day with us at West Coast Fossil Park!
18/05/2026

Spend the day with us at West Coast Fossil Park!

Fossil Friday: When mammals became warm-blooded 🔥How do you tell if an animal was warm-blooded… from a fossil? You look ...
15/05/2026

Fossil Friday: When mammals became warm-blooded 🔥
How do you tell if an animal was warm-blooded… from a fossil?
You look inside the ear.

By studying the inner ear canals of early mammal relatives like the above Tritylodon – which lived in South Africa 230 million years ago – scientists discovered something extraordinary.
Inner canals, which are responsible for balance, only work because they’re filled with fluid. And how that fluid moves depends on body temperature.

Think of butter in a pan:
When it’s warm, it melts and moves easily. When it’s cold, it stays thick and slow.
The same applies inside the ear. As body temperature increases, the fluid becomes runnier – so the canals have to change shape to keep balance working properly.
Tritylodon and other early mammal relatives had ear canal shapes that proved it was warm blooded. This change is linked to faster metabolism, hair, and even whiskers. And by tracking this change through the fossil record, scientists discovered something else too…

Warm-bloodedness didn’t evolve over tens of millions of years like once thought. It evolved quickly, in less than a million years, right here in South Africa!

💡 Becoming warm-blooded allowed early mammals to stay active day and night, opening up entirely new ecological niches – and changing life on Earth forever.

13/05/2026

Six elephants. Three residents, three imposters… But which are which? 🔍
we need your help to decide:

1. Platybelodon – wide platypus-like mouth. Loved swampy areas.
2. Gomphothere – four tusks, adaptable to hard-to-reach food sources.
3. Deinotherium – tusks curve down from the chin. Lived in forests and savannahs.
4. African mammoth – the very first mammoth.
5. Loxodonta cookie – ancestor of modern African elephants.
6. Ambelodon – shovel-shaped lower jaw.

Let us know what you think 👇

Your moments, your perspective, our Park. 📸We love receiving photos from your visits, it’s the best way to see the Fossi...
11/05/2026

Your moments, your perspective, our Park. 📸
We love receiving photos from your visits, it’s the best way to see the Fossil Park come to life through you.

Images credit: Saldanha Nature, & History

Address

R45, Vredenburg, West Coast
Langebaanweg
7375

Opening Hours

Monday 11:00 - 15:00
Tuesday 11:00 - 15:00
Wednesday 11:00 - 15:00
Thursday 23:00 - 15:00
Friday 11:00 - 15:00
Saturday 11:00 - 12:30
Sunday 11:00 - 12:30

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