Graveyard Of Rhino-Sized Mega-Wombats Found

Scientists in Australia have discovered a huge graveyard of ancient, rhino-sized mega-wombats.

The site in the outback in Queensland is thought to contain up to 50 diprotodon skeletons which could be between 100,000 and 200,000-years-old.

Lead scientist on the dig, Scott Hocknall from the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, said one of the specimens, called Kenny, was one of the largest diprotodons he had ever seen.

Kenny's jawbone alone is 70cm (28 inches) long. Pigeon-toed and with a backward-facing pouch large enough to carry an adult human, Mr Hocknull likened a diprotodon to "a cross between a wombat and a bear but the size of a rhinoceros".

news.sky.com...

Why was everything so big back then. Did the earth have lighter gravity compared to now.?

reply to post by EnigmaAgent



wow! whats next, giant Joeys?

Cosmic Koalas?

Gigantamungas kookaburra's ?

super duper wallabies and wallaroos?


oh my!


XD peace.

reply to post by EnigmaAgent


Cool story.

Everything was bigger back then because there was much more oxygen in the atmosphere.

www.sciencedaily.com...

This would have contributed to larger creatures.

Gravity wouldn't have been the culprit here.

Thanks for sharing and S&F.

Pred...

reply to post by EnigmaAgent


More oxygen. The organs need oxygen to be that big and back then we had more oxygen.

There are also fossils of dragon flies as big as sea gulls from that age.

As I've said, one day we'll run out of oxygen... imagine that!

bloody nora tho, wombats are grumpy as they are, as big as small dogs... let alone large enough to carry humans in their pouch!! oO

whew!

Thanks for the replies chaps.

One never stops learning of things.

reply to post by EnigmaAgent


Here is the real crazy part my man. If ish was that big back in the day, how did our ancestor compete with just stone tools.

I don`t think oxygen content is the only answer for some animals enormity.

If it was, all animals from that time period would have been large, but not all were.

I'm so tempted to give up my screen name and all the goodies I've earned to re register as Mega Wombat.

Goodness, if this had been posted on April 1st I wouldn't have believed it. This thread may have one of the coolest titles I've seen in years. I dearly wish there were some way to see what the earth used to look like when it had creatures like this roaming in it...without actually having to be among them and risk life and limb.