ABSTRACT
The lead character in the Adaptation exhibition is Lake Clifton, in the Yalgorup National Park, Western Australia, where one of the only living colonies of thrombolites can be found. Thrombolites, sometimes called the stepping stones of life, are neither plant nor animal. The living, growing rock-like formations in Lake Clifton (south of Mandurah) are 2,000 years old and directly descended from the earliest known forms of life on earth. Thrombolites once dominated Achaean seas (3.8 billion to 2.5 billion years ago) but now survive in only a handful of places on the planet.
