Long ago, enormous animals known as megafauna roamed across the world—woolly mammoths and the saber-toothed cats are probably the best known. There are plenty of theories as to why these giants went extinct. But something different happened in Australia.
Australia’s megafauna were once immense. There was Diprotodon, a massively ungraceful beast that was the world’s largest marsupial. Then there was Palorchestes, a long-necked marsupial resembling a giant anteater crossed with a cat. The Haast’s eagle was large enough to be a man-eater. There were wombats the size of rhinos and lizards as long as a bus.
And then they disappeared.
Based on the fossil record, Australia lost most of its megafauna about 13,000 years ago. That’s suspiciously close to when people first arrived on the continent, so it’s naturally been suggested that humans successfully wiped out the giant animals. But others find it rather unlikely that a smattering of small human settlements would be able to wipe out entire species of megafauna, and instead suggest that it was climate change that spelled the end for the massive beasts.
Adding to the mystery is the fact that other continents kept many large animals, such as elk, bears, elephants, and big cats. They’re not on the scale of ancient megafauna, but they’re still pretty big. By far the largest of the indigenous species left in Australia is the red kangaroo, with males reaching up to 1.5 meters (5.3 ft) tall and weighing about 90 kilograms (200 lb). So we’re left wondering why Australia ended up without anything like the giant creatures found in the rest of the world.
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