Date of Issue : 21 Apr 2005
Postmark : Hawker SA 5434
Denomination : 5 x 50c and AU$1.00
Stamp Size : 37.5 mm x 26 mm
Paper : Tullis Russell
Printing Process : Lithography
Creatures of the Slime, a children's stamp issue, reveals the world's first animals – multicellular organisms, dating back some 560 million years ago. Known as Ediacaran fossils, these creatures predated the dinosaurs by millions of years. The stamps feature the Tribrachidium, which may have lived on the sea floor (50c); the Dickinsonia, which is a "germ eater" (50c); the Spriggina, which is between an arthropod and a segmented annelid worm (50c); the Kimberella, a soft shelled molusc (50c); the Inaria, probably the oldest fossils of an animal showing the entire body (50c); as well as the Charnodiscus, a feather-like organism (AU$1.00).