PROBABLY THE GIGANTIC DIPROTODON.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 203, 27 August 1910, Page 13

PROBABLY THE GIGANTIC DIPROTODON.

1 (By Dr. W. D. Matthew, of the Amerij can Museum of Natural History.) The reported discovery of a gigantic I mammal in New Guinea by a British expedition is extremely interesting. While the description of the animal so far re-1 ceived is too meagre to enable mc to identify the creature, it is not at all improbable that some new specimen has. been found. j It has been suggested that, in view of the tapir-like head which the newly-j found animal is said to possess, it might,' perhaps, be a marsupial tapir, but the j animal's enormous size renders that rather unlikely. | There was once a. marsupial mammal in Australia, however, which had the I head of a tapir and was of gigantic J size, and though it has been ! CONSIDERED EXTINCT FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, it is not impossible that some few hardy ; specimens have survived the extinction of their fellows, and that the animal reported by the British expedition is nothing less than the ancient diprotodon. Fossil remains of the diprodont which have been found in Australia in recent years indicate that it was an animal of enormous size, possibly larger than an elephant. Its head was shaped very much like that of a tapir, although, of course, very much larger. It was by far THIE LARGEST MARSUPIAL THAT EVER EXISTED, as far as we know-. A skull of this monster, measuring nearly three feet in length, is now to be seen in the Adelaide Museum, Australia, and we have a plaster cast of it in our own museum. The diprotodon probably resembled the ! modern wombat, and its protruding I front teeth must have given it a particu- j larly ferocious appearance. If the British scientists have indeed discovered a living specimen of this an-1 cient monster, their find is one of the : most important ever made. j .____._„___.._____