Discovery of ancient creature buried in outback solves 150-year-long puzzle
Strange new variations, including the ability to hop on all fours, have been discovered among Australia's ancient kangaroo ancestors.
The discovery of multiple animal skeletons in outback Australia has led to a new understanding of giant kangaroos. The ancient bones are from a species that lived on the continent between 40,000 and 5 million years ago.
Remains of giant kangaroos were first described by scientists in 1874, and some were shipped more than 15,000km from their arid resting place to a chilly room at London’s Natural History Museum. Since then researchers have argued over how many species of giant Protemnodon kangaroos there are.
Now Flinders University scientists believe they have helped “unpick” the “150-year-long puzzle” about how diverse the ancestors were compared to modern day kangaroos. Their analysis of more than 800 bones resulted in the description of three “unusual” new species.
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What did the giant kangaroos look like?
One of the newly described kangaroos, Protemnodon viator, weighed up to 170kg — twice the weight of modern day male red kangaroos. It appears to have been long-limbed which enabled it to hop fairly quickly.
The other descriptions were of Protemnodon mamkurra and Protemnodon dawsonae. The former is believed to have sometimes hopped on four legs like a quokka or potoroo and looked very different to Protemnodon viator.
“A large but thick-boned and robust kangaroo, it was probably fairly slow-moving and inefficient. It may have hopped only rarely, perhaps just when startled,” palaeontologist Dr Isaac Kerr said.
New bone discoveries are helping scientists understand giant kangaroos
The various species of Protemnodon are believed to have occupied diverse environments, something the researchers described as “unusual”.
Studying them has proved difficult because, although numerous, many of the discoveries have been of single isolated bones. However, in 2013, 2018 and 2019 multiple complete fossil skeletons were discovered at Lake Callabonna in South Australia, aiding research of the giant creatures.
Why the genus became extinct 40,000 years ago, despite its physical and geographical variation, remains unclear. But with ongoing research, scientists hope to soon be able to answer that question.
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