Fossil bones of the marsupial lion have been found in caves on the Nullabor Plain. Scientists have estimated their age at between 400,000 and 800,000 years old. Cave paintings of marsupial lions in northwest Australia, discovered in 2006, depict them with a striped back, tufted tail and pointed ears. In 2009, after a long drought in southeast Victoria had dried out many lakes, a farmer near Ballarat discovered fossil footprints and a jawbone of a marsupial lion preserved in limestone in a dry lake bed.