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Concept
Diprotodon
Summary
Diprotodon (Ancient Greek: "two protruding front teeth") is an extinct genus of marsupial from the Pleistocene of Australia containing one species, D. optatum. The earliest finds date to 1.77 million to 780,000 years ago but most specimens are dated to after 110,000 years ago. Its remains were first unearthed in 1830 in Wellington Caves, New South Wales, and contemporaneous paleontologists guessed they belonged to rhinos, elephants, hippos or dugongs. Diprotodon was formally described by English naturalist Richard Owen in 1838, and was the first named Australian fossil mammal, and led Owen to become the foremost authority of his time on other marsupials and Australian megafauna, which were enigmatic to European science.
Diprotodon is the largest-known marsupial to have ever lived, it greatly exceeds the size of its closest living relatives wombats and koalas. It is a member of the extinct family Diprotodontidae, which includes other large quadrupedal herbivores. It grew as large as at the shoulders, over from head to tail, and possibly weighed almost . Females were much smaller than males. Diprotodon supported itself on elephant-like legs to travel long distances, and inhabited most of Australia. The digits were weak; most of the weight was probably borne on the wrists and ankles. The hindpaws angled inward at 130°. Its jaws may have produced a strong bite force of at the long and ever-growing incisor teeth, and over at the last molar. Such powerful jaws would have allowed it to eat vegetation in bulk, crunching and grinding plant materials such as twigs, buds and leaves of woody plants with its bilophodont teeth.
It is the only marsupial and metatherian that is known to have made seasonal migrations. Large herds, usually of females, seem to have marched through a wide range of habitats to find food and water, walking at around . Diprotodon may have formed polygynous societies, possibly using its powerful incisors to fight for mates or fend off predators, such as the largest-known marsupial carnivore Thylacoleo carnifex.
Official source
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