|
|
|
|
|
AUSTRALIAN MARSUPIAL CARNIVORES OF HISTORY Australia had more than its fair share of big, fierce, meat-eating mammals, given its size and isolation. Killer mammals had been rare on all continents, with only 45 big kinds existing on the planet during the past 65,000 years and more than 10 per cent of them were furry, sharp-toothed Australians, despite Australia only taking up about 6 per cent of the world's land surface area." The carnivores that called Australia home millennia ago included six species of killer kangaroo, 13 kinds of Thylacine and eight species of marsupial "lions". In the Pleistocene Era (the past two million years) a group of very large terrestrial animals - mammals, reptiles and birds - roamed the earth. These `megafauna' largely disappeared between about 50,000 and a few thousand years ago. In Australia, about 80 per cent of genera of these large terrestrial animals were lost. They were predominantly marsupials, but also included a giant reptile, the carnivorous giant goanna Megalania, and a huge bird, Genyornis.
This page is a work in progress and is to
be about them... |
