Climate change, not hunters, killed ancient Australia's giant kangaroosCold, arid climates of the last ice age have been identified as a likely cause, casting doubt on the alternative hypothesis which blames human hunters... The largest marsupials weighted up to 2.5 tonnes - heavier than a four wheel drive car. Giant kangaroos were at least 1 m taller than the biggest kangaroos today. "They all became extinct, with the red kangaroo the largest marsupial to survive beyond the ice age. The reason for their extinction has long been debated" said Dr Matt Cupper of the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Dr Matt Cupper from the University of Melbourne and Ms Jacqui Duncan from La Trobe University revisited an archaeological site discovered at Lake Menindee on the Darling River in the 1930s where evidence of human hunting of the large animals had been argued to occur... "We determined that there is no evidence of humans butchering the marsupials. People were not even at the scene of the crime, with the oldest evidence of humans at the site at least 10,000 years after the giant mammals went extinct," said Ms Jacqui Duncan of the Archaeology Program at La Trobe University. "The animals probably died of starvation during drought around 55,000 years ago," she said.
University of Melbourne
August 16, 2006
Thylacoleo Fossil Find
3 July 2003
Every palaeontologist dreams of the big one..the find of a century that one that will define their life forever...
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s888112.htm
"The dry cave had kept the half a million year old skeleton as bones not fossils. Bones so fragile that if they were picked up before being treated with glue, (they) would fall to dust in your hands."
LOL! It just lay there for 500,000 years...