CANBERRA (XINHUA) – South Australian researchers have discovered three new ancient species of giant kangaroos.
In a study published recently, the team from Flinders University described the three new species based on fossils found in Australia and New Guinea.
All three species belong to the extinct genus Protemnodon, also called giant kangaroos, which lived on mainland Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea from five million years ago to 40,000 years ago.
The lead researcher, Isaac Kerr from the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University, visited the collections of 14 museums in four countries to study and 3D scan 800 Protemnodon specimens collected from all over Australia and New Guinea to distinguish between the different species of giant kangaroo.
He found that different species adapted to live in different environments and even hopped in different ways. One species that was discovered during the research, the Protemnodon viator, weighed up to 170 kilogrammes, making it twice as big as the largest male red kangaroos that still roam Australia.
“Living kangaroos are already such remarkable animals, so it’s amazing to think what these peculiar giant kangaroos could have been getting up to,” Kerr said in a media release.
Two more species, the Protemnodon mamkurra and Protemnodon dawsonae, were discovered while revisiting the work of earlier researchers dating back to the 19th Century.
Kerr said the study dispelled previous beliefs that all Protemnodon were quadrupedal.
“Our study suggests that this is true of only three or four species of Protemnodon, which may have moved something like a quokka or potoroo, that is bounding on four legs at times, and hopping on two legs at others,” he said.
According to the study, previous research has been hampered by Protemnodon fossils being found as individual bones without the rest of the animal.
Kerr said the best fossils of the Protemnodon mamkurra were found at the Green Waterhole Cave in southeastern South Australia. The name mamkurra was chosen by the local Indigenous people, meaning great kangaroo.
