“It did not eat flesh, but whatever got in its way would have been trampled to death, scientists agreed today after the first complete skeleton of a prehistoric monster was found in Australia. Known as a diprotodon and likened to a giant wombat, weighing three tons and stretching up to 14ft long, it roamed the Australian continent between 25,000 and two million years ago. What is known, from a fragment of bone from the remains of another diprotodon discovered in New South Wales, is that these creatures lived on the continent at the same time as the early Aborigines. A small hole was found in that fragment, suggesting that the animal was brought down by a spear. But that was just one bone and, until the latest discovery in north-west Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria region, a complete skeleton had not been found. ‘We hope we will now be able to reconstruct the bones, put them into their original positions, to give us a pretty good idea of what these creatures looked like,’ said Professor Michael Archer of the Australian Museum, who has traveled to a cattle station where the skeleton was found.” w/ photos
