The killer kangaroos that roamed prehistoric Australia


Last updated at 16:13 12 July 2006

Don't call him Skippy - the kangaroo that roamed Australia 10million years ago was no cuddly, furry animal, the fossilised remains of today's ancestral animals have revealed.

They hopped about the rainforest-covered continent looking for smaller creatures to crunch up in their razor-sharp teeth, while in the sky 'demon ducks of doom' with huge beaks were on the lookout for prey.

And if you don't think sabre-toothed roos were fearful enough, add to their armoury the fact that they would gallop at great speeds, rather than hop like today's species.

"This was a very weird place," said Professor Mike Archer, who has led a team into Australia's "fossil land", a region in north west Queensland where stony remains have revealed details of the extraordinary creatures that once roamed the continent.

"None of the kangaroos - and there are about 35 different kinds of extinct 'roos in these deposits - would have looked like anything we would have recognised today," he said.

"They didn't hop. These were galloping kangaroos with big, powerful forelimbs and some had long canines like wolves.


Another member of the team from the University of New South Wales, Dr Sue Hand, said yesterday that the group of animals they refer to as killer kangaroos had "slicing crests" on their teeth, which, she said "could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh."

If that wasn't enough to make that ancient world very dangerous for man - and fortunately he didn't arrive until 50,000 years ago - there were some other terrifying creatures that would see off the smaller opposition without any trouble.

"We've found the fossils of some very large crocodiles and some very, very big birds, which we call thunderbirds and are among the biggest ever found in the world.

"They would have weighed 200 kilograms or more and would have been a very beefy version of an emu. They would have been very closely related to ducks, geese and water fowl, hence they've earned the nickname we've given them - the demon ducks of doom because it appears some of them may have been carnivorous."


Despite the dangers, Dr Hand believes that inland Australia would have been a very beautiful place. Around 20million to 15million years ago the rainforest would have been very complex and of the same biodiversity as the Amazon of today.


Dr Archer believes that the fossils and earth samples they have now brought back to the Sydney university will provide a new insight into the types and the life of the creatures that roamed the continent.

"What we've uncovered are the fossilised remains of more than 20 previously unknown species that are believed to be among the thousands of extinct creatures that were around at the time," he said.

"It's truly extraordinary material. The new sites we've found indicate a profoundly different ecosystem, something we've never seen before in Australia with fossils."    

Fossilised material, he pointed out, is usually a brownish or reddish colour, but the new material is black.

"That indicates that whatever the environment was there, it was not rich in oxygen," he said.


But that did not stop killer roos, ducks of doom and other fanged and frightening creatures gnashing their way through the undergrowth.



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