Scientists have discovered three new species of extinct giant kangaroos: details

Scientists have discovered three new species of giant kangaroos that have long been extinct

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Scientists from Flinders University (Australia) discovered three new species of giant extinct kangaroos – Protemnodon viator, Protemnodon mamkurra and Protemnodon dawsonae. They existed from five million to 40 thousand years ago.

For thousands of years, marsupials have inhabited the territory of Australia. However, knowledge of the giant kangaroos known as Protemnodonwere still based on fragmentary remains and species that were previously difficult to distinguish, writes The Guardian.

Scientists photographed and 3D-scanned 900 specimens of remains in 14 major museums in Australia, Great Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea.

It was believed that the majority protemnodons moved on four legs, but researchers now say that this was true of only three or four of their species. Others, according to scientists, moved by “leaning on four legs or jumping on two.”

They found significant differences between the species – for example, that they jumped differently and some jumps were “very unusual”.

Researchers believe that individuals of the species Protemnodon viator could weigh up to 170 kilograms. This is twice the weight of today’s largest red male kangaroos.

Scientist Isaac Kerr noted that the classification of species will allow in the future to study the evolution of giant kangaroos and their response to environmental changes.

The diversity of kangaroo species probably arose as a result of adaptation to the various environmental conditions in which they lived: from arid central Australia to the dense forests of the mountains of Tasmania and Papua New Guinea.

Also, scientists still have not been able to find out why giant kangaroos died out, and their “close relatives” – the gray kangaroo and the wallaroo – did not. Kerr suspects that rapid human-induced environmental changes may have been the cause.

We used to toldthat in the forests of Amazon, scientists have discovered a new species of snakes, which are probably the largest in the world.