Killer-roos!!!

I think those Aussies should put away their Fosters for a bit, go for a walkabout and search for any surviving members of this marsupial.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Killer Kangaroo Had Wolf-Like Fangs, Scientists Say

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney say they found the remains of as many as 20 new species during a recent two-week dig in northeastern Queensland.

"There are weird, flesh-eating kangaroos," Michael Archer, science dean at UNSW, told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio earlier this month.

"There are about 35 different kinds of extinct kangaroos in [Queensland] deposits. None of them would've looked like anything we would have recognized today, because they didn't hop," he said.

"These were galloping kangaroos with big powerful forelimbs. Some of them had long canines like wolves."

Imagine playing fetch with your pet dingo in the back yard and having that lope out of the bush.


[edit on 15-8-2006 by masqua]

Once while out shooting with my grandfather in the west macdonnell ranges in central australia we shot a red kangaroo that stood a good 6 1/2 ft upright, bloody thing was massive, huge claws and it was aggressive, it came straight at our 4wd. Bloody tough too, only good for the dogs to eat.
I think the museum in Adelaide has some fossilised remains of a large roo, from memory there was also supposed to be a massive wombat, will see if i can find a link.

Edit to add this.

All of these fossils were found in the one location in South Australia at the Naracoorte caves, about a 3 hr drive from here.

www.abc.net.au...

wouldnt want to find this cat in your garbage can, Thylacoleo carnifex (i think a full skeleton of the lion was discovered and it was thought to have weighed well over 120 kilos and was 2 metres long)

commonly called the marsupial lion, it had a cat-like skull with large slicing premolars or cheek teeth. Combined with a large retractable thumb claw and powerful forelimbs this animal would have been a fearsome predator.

you call that a lizard, nah this is a lizard, Megalania prisca

- a goanna of terrifying proportions, 6 metres long and able to look you in the eye. The first fossil of this goanna was only found at Naracoorte in 2000.

i think this is an ancestor to the wombat, Diprotodon australis.

the largest marsupial to ever live in Australia, weighing over two tonnes. It is rarely found in the cave deposits, because its sheer size prevented it from falling through most cave openings.

[edit on 15/8/06 by mojo4sale]

That's a velocirapteroo!!!