GIANTS OF THE PAST

Otago Witness, Issue 3526, 11 October 1921, Page 37

GIANTS OF THE PAST

" ta> " - j AUSTRALIA’S EXTINCT ANIMALS. REMARKABLE JAW FOUND. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 23. From time to time discoveries arc made in various parts of Australia which prove I the biggest kangaroos of to-clay to be but | the puny descendants of enormous crca- ! tares, whose skulls alone reached a yard in length. The latest remnant of these giants of the past is a phenomenal jaw which has just been found in a fossilised state on the bank cf King's Creek, near the Darling i Downs, in South Queensland. The Director , of the Queensland Museum states that it | represents the incomplete lower jaw of I the giant extinct marsupial known as the diprotodon Australis. Numerous remains, he says, have been found in Queensland of this very large animal, and complete skeletons ! have been secured in the bed of Lake Callabonna, South Australia. Some idea of the size of this marsupial may bo gauged from the length of the skull, which in an . adult may be fully a yard long. The dipro- : todon was undoubtedly herbivorous, and , its upper and lower teeth somewhat re- , semble those of the kangaroo, although very greatly larger. The fore and hind limbs were of about the same length, and : in this respect there is a likeness to llie _ 1 jrvjdenu wombat. The dipircrtiodon was i probably a sluggish and inoffensive uni- ! ,iij], and evidently roamed over the greater f part of Australia. Its marsupial nature is : abundantly revealed bv many features of , the skeleton, including the marsupial bones. s in 1838 the late Sir Richard Owen first ! used the name diprotodon. which means “two front teeth,’’ having reference to bite a two large incisors in the front of the lower s jaw,