Australia , as is well known , is evolution ’s vicious playground . There is such an abundance of toxicant , venomous , and lethal creatures there – in the middle of a uncongenial , continental - sized desert of course – that it ’s almost as if the innate world is actively telling humanity to puddle off .
Still , it could have been worse . A few million years back and the entire region was populated with even more tremendous shuttle and reptilian , and even more means to give out . As palaentologists from Flinders University have just bring out , there was also at least five species of really monolithic birds – one the size of an adult Second Earl Grey kangaroo – soaring through the skies above Australia .
Ruling the strain 1.6 million years ago to as recently as 10,000 years ago , these“megapodes”were unusual enough by not being flightless , unlike plenty of other gigantic birds . Their less dull ivory structure mean that they only weighed as much as 8 kilogram ( around 18 pounds ) , but this was still four times heavier than their most nearly related inhabit descendants
identify them as “ tall joker ” ( theProguragenus ) if they had long and spindly leg , and “ nuggetty chickens ” ( the freshly - mintedLatagallinagenus ) if they were stout , short - legged birds , the researcher say that despite their bulk , they were able-bodied to vanish and roost in tree .
They lack effective digging feet , so or else of making hummock as nests like the Australian brushturkey , they probably buried their eggs in warm plot of ground of land . They were likely omnivores , and swoop down onto a variety of dinner , from insects and fruit to plants and small reptile .
Writing in the journalRoyal Society Open Science , the team explain that their work suggests that the diversity of mammoth birds back during the Pleistocene Epoch was greater than anyone had previously thought .
“ These uncovering are quite remarkable because they say us that more than half of Australia ’s mound builder went out during the Pleistocene , ” lead author Elen Shute , a vertebrate palaeontology doctoral student at Flinders , say in astatement .
A compounding of climate change and human migration to the region likely killed off these okay beasties . It look like they at least outlasted the so - calledDemon Ducks of Doom , a really atrocious flightless bird that died around 50,000 geezerhood ago .
These flesh - eating creatures were nearlytwicethe height of a to the full - grown kangaroo , weigh 300 kilogram ( 662 pounds ) , and hunted their prey down with a beak armed with scissor - same ridgepole .
Australia is certainly less shuddery these days – although as history shows us , we should n’t let our defend down . Adisastrous warbetween armed Australian partisans and tens of thousands of emus back in 1932 terminate in a humiliating passing for our own metal money , and the legacy of this conflict can still be seen today .
