The killer kangaroo species had "well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh," vertebrate paleontologist Sue Hand said.
Posted on 07/12/2006 2:26:18 PM PDT by freepatriot32
SYDNEY (July 12) - Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. A team of Australian paleontologists say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a "demon duck of doom."
A University of New South Wales team said the fearsome fossils were among 20 previously unknown species uncovered at a site in northwest Queensland state.
Professor Michael Archer said on Wednesday the remains of a meat-eating kangaroo with wolf-like fangs were found as well as a galloping kangaroo with long forearms that could not hop like a modern kangaroo.
"Because they didn't hop, these were galloping kangaroos, with big, powerful forelimbs. Some of them had long canines (fangs) like wolves," Archer told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Vertebrate paleontologist Sue Hand said modern kangaroos look almost nothing like their ferocious forebears, which lived between 10 million and 20 million years ago.
The species found at the dig had "well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh," Hand said.
The team also found prehistoric lungfish and large duck-like birds.
"Very big birds ... more like ducks, earned the name 'demon duck of doom', some at least may have been carnivorous as well," Hand told ABC radio.
Archer said the team was studying the fossils to better understand how they were affected by changing climates in the Miocene epoch between 5 million and 24 million years ago.
07/12/06 03:15 ET
The killer kangaroo species had "well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh," vertebrate paleontologist Sue Hand said.
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Jeez.
gah
Kinda gives new meaning to the words "tie me kangaroo down,mate".
And this is a picture of which one?
Thanks for posting. Giant Meat Eating Kangaroo - or a marsupial warm-blooded 'Dinosaur' that hopped, hmmmm?
Don't do that!
You guys be nice to me or I'll cook up a cauldron of Fanged Kangaroo and Duck of Doom...
Ah, good. Here's one for my email list.
duck of doom ? oh! you mean Howard Dean !
That's no Duck of Doom. That's the Hag from Hell.
Duck of Doom, dined on it at the World of Hurt restaurant once
been there, never again..
BTTT
According to the scale in the photo, the skull is about six inches long. This thing was the size of a collie.
ROLOL. Scientists can't even agree on changes in climate over the last 1000 years let alone millions of years ago.
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