Pleistocene Australia was home to many exotic animals, including the largest kangaroo and marsupial ever known, as well as giant flightless birds and reptiles like the ambush predator snake Wonambi and the dragon-like Megalania. Many of these animals went extinct when humans arrived on the continent, but some survived until the 19th century.
Numerous exotic animals lived in Pleistocene Australia (1.8 million to 11,550 years BP). Many of these animals went extinct around 48,000 years ago when humans first arrived on the continent, although some only died out in the 19th century. Pleistocene Australia was one of the first places early mankind went after leaving Africa, as massive ice caps made most of Europe and modern day Russia uninhabitable.
By breaking away from Gondwanaland – an ancient continent that includes South America and Antarctica – about 40 million years ago, Pleistocene Australia had a chance to evolve its unique fauna. Some of them resemble exaggerated versions of species still alive today. The main groups are marsupials, monotremes, crocodilians, turtles, monitor lizards and many large flightless birds.
For humans who first arrived in Pleistocene Australia, one of the most conspicuous sights would have been Procoptodon goliath the short-faced kangaroo, a 3-metre (10 ft) tall kangaroo that weighed about 232 kg (507 lb). This is the largest kangaroo that ever lived. Even bigger was Diprotodon, a giant wombat the size of a hippopotamus. Diprotodon is the largest marsupial that ever lived, standing three meters (10 feet long) from nose to tail, two meters (6 feet) tall at the shoulder, weighing in excess of two tons.
Diprotodon and the short-faced kangaroo would have been hunted by carnivorous animals such as the marsupial lion – Thylacoleo carnifex, “meat-cutter marsupial lion” – the largest marsupial predator at the time. The marsupial lion was 75 cm (29 in) at the shoulder and about 150 cm (75 in) long from head to tail. They average 101-130 kg (223-287 lb), with some reaching 124-160 kg (273-353 lb) in weight. The marsupial lion had the most powerful bite of any mammal, dead or alive. In contrast, the largest carnivorous marsupial today, the Tasmanian tiger, is about the size of a dog.
Pleistocene Australia was a place with many large flightless birds related to the carnivorous “Terror” of South America. These birds, including families Genyornis and Dromornithidae, were very fast runners, probably approaching speeds of 60 mph. Genyornis, at about 3 meters tall, may have been the largest bird that ever lived. These birds occupied a medium-sized ecological niche that has been occupied exclusively by mammals in the modern world. It is not known to what extent they were carnivores. It could have varied between species, with some being scavengers, others being carnivores, and others being omnivores.
In the reptile category, Pleistocene Australia was inhabited by a 5-metre (16-foot) snake, Wonambi, named after the ‘rainbow snakes’ of Aboriginal mythology. This was an ambush predator, a constrictor that would lurk around waterholes, waiting for any unfortunate koala, kangaroo or human that came to drink. As a result, the Indigenous people of Australia have made a habit of forbidding their children to play around waterholes without an adult.
A giant monitor lizard found in Pleistocene Australia, Megalania, or “The Great Roamer,” may be the closest thing this planet has had to a dragon since the end of the dinosaurs. Large specimens would have a length of 7 meters (23 ft), with a conservative maximum weight of about 1940 kg (4.268 lbs). It is similar in size to an orca, but on land. We can only imagine what would have gone through Aboriginal minds upon first encountering this animal.
Other animals in Pleistocene Australia included Zaglossus hacketti, a sheep-sized echidna that is the largest monotreme ever discovered; Megalibgwilia ramsayi, a large long-beaked echidna good at burrowing; Propleopus oscillans, the man-sized “carnivorous kangaroo”; Protemnodon, a family of giant wallagints, and Quinkana, a giant crocodile.
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