.jpg){kind=link}
Mystery Marsupial of Australia.
Etymology: Australian word.
Physical description: Size of a horse.
Behavior: Semiaquatic. Eats grass.
Habitat: Creek beds, where it excavates large
holes in the banks.
Distribution: Near Gowrie Station, Queensland,
Australia.
Significant sighting: Aborigines claimed that
the fossil bones of extinct diprotodonts belonged
to large animals that were alive several
generations earlier.
Present status: Extinct but known as living animals
to the ancestors of the Aborigines.
Possible explanation: Surviving Diprotodon optatum,
a fossil wombatlike marsupial, the largest
known, that lived from 2.5 million to as recently
as 6,000 years ago. It was the size of a
modern rhinoceros, about 10 feet long, and had
a heavy skull nearly 3 feet long. It had massive
jaws and a large lower incisor.