Mystery Marsup
ial of Australia.
Variant name: Kuperree.
Distribution: Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.
Significant sighting: The Aborigines of Port
Lincoln had a legend of the extinction of a
Giant kangaroo named Kuperree.
Possible explanation: The Eastern gray kangaroo
(Macropus giganteus) was much larger during
the Late Pleistocene, perhaps twice as massive.
Specimens now grow no greater than a
body length of 5 feet, with a tail at least 3 feet
long. Buried in a swamp near Lancefield, Victoria,
are the remains of thousands of giant
Macropus fossils that died about 26,000 years
ago.