Latest Diprotodon Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of researchers led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has completed a major review of the available evidence to conclude that most species of gigantic animals that once roamed the Australian continent disappeared before the arrival of humans. These findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and challenge the claim that humans were the primary cause of extinction for...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Scientists may have finally established the explanation for the disappearance of the giant koala and other Australian megafauna. Between 50,000 and 45,000 years ago, around 60 species of mammals, predominantly foraging herbivores called browsers, went extinct. These animals included 19 species that weighed over 100 kilograms, like the rhinoceros-sized giant wombat and half-ton marsupial Palorchestes azael. Slightly smaller animals like the flightless bird...
Scientists said Wednesday that the fossil of a mega-wombat has been unearthed in northern Australia. The herbivorous diprotodon was the largest marsupial to ever roam the earth and lived between two million and 50,000 years ago. The diprotodon skeleton was dug up in remote Queensland last week and scientists believe it could shed valuable light on the species' demise. The ancient marsupial became extinct around the same time that indigenous tribes first appeared and debate has raged about the...
A new scientific paper co-authored by a University of Adelaide researcher reports strong evidence that humans, not climate change, caused the demise of Australia's megafauna - giant marsupials, huge reptiles and flightless birds - at least 40,000 years ago.In a paper published today in the international journal Science, two Australian scientists claim that improved dating methods show that humans and megafauna only co-existed for a relatively short time after people inhabited Australia,...
By Price, Gilbert Analysis of thousands of Diprotodon fossils has resolved the debate about how many species of this ancient giant wombat existed - and uncovered some clues to their behaviour. Imagine you could travel back in time to a period not more than 100,000 years ago. What sort of world would you have seen? What was the landscape like ? What sort of animals would you likely encounter? This was a harsh period in the Earth's history, subjected to massive shifts in climate and prolonged...
