The biggest kangaroo hopping around Down Under? Try Australia’s red kangaroo, weighing in at 200 pounds. That’s 2.5 times the weight of my dog, Tor. But how about 370 pounds? That’s how much a newly identified extinct kangaroo is believed to have weighed. Run away, Tor, run!
Running away, though, may not have been an option, per a paper published in the journal Megataxa by Isaac Kerr (Flinders University, Australia) and colleagues. Several species from the genus Protemnodon, or Giant Kangaroos, apparently lived between 5 million and 40,000 years ago and, rather than lumber their heft about, they could hop with the best of them. They were likely done in by rapid climate change and human predation during the Pleistocene.
Australia has a patchy fossil record, and while members of the Protemnodon genus have been known for 150 years, a picture of the varied species, their habitats and habits has remained fuzzy. So Kerr’s team reviewed all samples and data they could get their hands on. As a result, seven species emerged from dusty museum storage room shelves, including three totally new ones. The study shows great diversity among the Giant Kangaroos of the late Cenozoic inhabiting a range of environments, from dry grasslands to woodlands, forests and rainforests.