Yet despite this often incomplete picture, even a tiny shard of bone can reveal new information—but only if scientists can be sure of exactly which species it belongs to. “ZooMS is … based on small differences in the main bone protein, collagen type I, between species/genera/families,” she says. These differences allow for the identification of a collagen “fingerprint,” which can then be compared to a sample from an as-yet-unidentified bone. “Fossils deposited in hot, dry and arid places, such as large parts of Australia, lose their collagen very early…. Douka hopes that new tools like ZooMS might be able to “help confirm or deny suggestions that early Aboriginals co-existed with megafauna in Australia.”