Killer Koala Unearthed
Photo courtesy of Australian Museum
Like a giant (size of a rhino) cross between a wombat and a koala, the Diprotodon supposedly died out in Australia 25,000 years ago. As with all other extinct megafauna, experts figure that they were either eaten to extinction by people, or they succumbed to disease or climate change. On the first count, I wouldn’t be surprised if the eating was done by the beast!
As a catastrophist who has noticed that most megafaunal extinctions coincided with a global cataclysm roughly 11,000 years ago, I figure they’ll find that this or other specimens of Diprotodon lived more recently that 25,000 years ago.
I look forward to the date determined for this new find, as described today in the Cairns Post:
Scientists believe they are on the verge of unearthing a prehistoric graveyard after digging up a complete skeleton of the world’s largest marsupial on a Far Northern cattle property. Researchers hit the jackpot after finding the remains of the massive Diprotodon at Floraville Station, on the Leichhardt River between Normanton and Burketown.
The Diprotodon, which was about the size of a four-wheel drive, was widespread across Australia and believed to co-exist with indigenous people until it became extinct about 25,000 years ago.
…”It potentially has information about how long the mega fauna may have survived in the northern part of Australia,” Prof Hand said.
“Because it’s so well preserved, there could be a lot of information that can be retrieved from it.” Prof Hand believed the discovery could also point to a prehistoric graveyard of other animals at the site.
“If you’ve got this much of a skeleton of one of these big beasts, and usually they’re quite dispersed and you don’t get them sitting there nicely, it suggests that some more work could turn up a mega faunal graveyard,” she said.
