What interesting megafauna did Australia once have? Of all the landmasses of the world, Australia has perhaps been most affected, ecologically, by mortal exertion. Its current wildlife though spectacular as it’s is a bare cocoon of what it formerly was during the Pleistocene time.
Diprotodon was a relative of modern wombats, the largest marsupial ever to live. It was an estimated 2 measures tall at the shoulder and2.8 tons in weight- making it as big as a hippopotamus. It’s known to have rehearsed seasonal migration, likely in large herds.
Palorchestes, also known as the “ marsupial tapir ”, was one of Australia’s weirdest marsupials. Named after its long box, it was ecologically more like a ground idleness than a tapir, having huge claws for shearing leafage from the trees. It really looked like commodity out of Star Wars.
Another cyber surfer to be set up in Pleistocene Australia is Procoptodon. This huge kangaroo was high than a man and counted 240 kilograms, four times as much as the average person. It’s also known as the “ short- faced kangaroo ” due to its abbreviated honker , which was for trimming tough herbage and other browse.
Protemnodon anak is one of my favas among this Australian megafauna- colloquially nicknamed the “ giraffe wallaby ”, this huge wallaby was truly tall, with an elongated neck that allowed it to probe from the treetops. Its relative. tumbuna( bottom right) was a stouter creature which ate ground leafage.
On the subject of kangaroos and their relatives, I should mention Propleopus, the so- called killer kangaroo. This macro cover was apparently rapacious, and could ’ve eaten holocaust or indeed hunted live vertebrates. However, you ’ll know that rapacious kangaroos are not to be poked with, If you ’ve read one of my former answers.
Speaking of bloodsuckers, there were other large carnivorous marsupials in Australia at the time. There was the notorious ethylamine, and of course Thylacoleo- the “ marsupial captain ”. Recent discoveries have set up that it was further of a marsupial leopard; an arboreal bloodsucker which dropped from trees onto its prey.
Australia moment has emu’s, but they are suppressed by the region’s former flightless raspberries. The dromornithids were not ratites, but rather fowl- the largest, Dromornis, counted half a ton or further and was 3 measures tall. Also, since this is Australia, it might have been rapacious
Moving on to reptiles, the landmass was home to “ Megalania ”, or Varanus priscus. This was the largest terrestrial lizard ever to walk the Earth, being 7 measures long and around 1,000 kilograms in mass. It was a monitor lizard, related to modern Komodo dragons.
There was also a type of crocodile called Quinkana; it was the last surviving member of a group known as the mekosuchines-terrestrial crocs endemic to Australasia. Quinkana itself was 6 measures long and had long legs shaped for terrestrial movement.
still, it’s snakes, If there’s one thing Australia’s notorious for. presently it has multitudinous toxic snakes, but a numerous of its ancient serpents were elephants . Wonambi and Yurlunggur were the last members of a family of constrictors called the Madtsoiidae. Madtsoiids. Both were bigger than anacondas.
There’s a lot more interesting megafauna from Pleistocene Australia- these are just those which are the most eye- catching. Of course, before the Pleistocene, Australia also had multitudinous, multitudinous fascinating inhabitants, from giant bipedal stegosaurs( Garbina) tomega- pythons( Liasis dubungidula).
