Posted on 06/21/2012 7:34:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Australian scientists yesterday unveiled the biggest-ever graveyard of an ancient rhino-sized mega-wombat called diprotodon, with the site potentially holding valuable clues on the species’ extinction.
The remote fossil deposit in outback Queensland state is thought to contain up to 50 diprotodon skeletons including a huge specimen named Kenny, whose jawbone alone is 70cm long.
Lead scientist on the dig, Scott Hocknull from the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, said Kenny was one of the largest diprotodons he had ever seen and one of the best preserved specimens.
Pigeon-toed and with a backward-facing pouch large enough to carry an adult human, Hocknull likened diprotodon to “a cross between a wombat and a bear but the size of a rhinoceros”. The deposit contained the largest concentration of mega-wombat fossils ever discovered and could hold important clues on how the diprotodon lived and what caused it to perish, he said.
“When we did the initial survey I was just completely blown away by the concentrations of these fragments,” he told AFP by telephone from the far-flung desert dig site, which he estimated at between 100,000-200,000 years old. “It’s a palaeontologists’ goldmine where we can really see what these megafauna were doing, how they actually behaved, what their ecology was.
“With so many fossils it gives us a unique opportunity to see these animals in their environment, basically, so we can reconstruct it.”
The mega-wombats appeared to have been trapped in boggy conditions at the site after seeking refuge there from extremely dry conditions during a period of significant climate change in ancient Australia, he added.
Diprotodon, the largest marsupial ever to roam the earth, weighing up to 2.8 tonnes, lived between 2mn and 50,000 years ago and died out around the time indigenous tribes first appeared.
(Excerpt) Read more at gulf-times.com ...
Far be it from me to condone the unlawful taking of vermingame for screwing up the pecan harvest.
Or so I've heard.
/johnny
Anyone wanting to be on the WOMBAT PING LIST, contact nickcarraway.
Now... We need a cool graphic to help with my solicitation. ;)
/johnny
/johnny
nickcarraway
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Mega fauna would be a great name for a pet super store.
Dang. I gotta learn to copyright my big ideas before I give them away for free.
I have no idea what you’re talking about… so here's a woman with a wombat on her head.
A closed mouth gathers no feet
Diprotodon, the largest marsupial ever to roam the earth, weighing up to 2.8 tonnes, lived between 2mn and 50,000 years ago and died out around the time indigenous tribes first appeared.
***It would suggest that they made for a good barbecue.
Is that a crime? I used to have stuff on there, but I was going to change it and just never got around to putting something new.
I don’t get it.
Sounds like a good NATO designation for a Soviet fighter:
Foxbat
Fishbed
Wombat
HE SPEAKS
So figure a standard 60% yield rate.
That gives you 3696 lbs of edible meat, bone in, (we'll feed the liver and fiddly bits to un-named frenchmen on the side and not count them).
That gives you, depending on the bone density, about 2500 servings.
You will need 900 lbs of potatoes for 'tater salad.
150 lbs of beans for baked beans.
And everybody can bring a covered dish for deserts and veggies.
Damn... that was a reflex.
I do love a BBQ.
/johnny
MMMM... sounds tasty. No wonder they died when the ‘indigenous’ tribes showed up.
There are still billions of chickens and squirrels.
BBQs are fun. I can't wait for the cloning of the first mammoth.
/johnny
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