Australia's 10 extinct prehistoric giants

Australia is the only country in the world that has a continent all to itself with a wide variety of creatures. In Australia's prehistory, many fierce giants were born and roamed all over the land. In this issue, let's take a look at 10 prehistoric beasts in Australia and see how many you know.

1. Bag lion

Phylactery ("pocket lion") is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that lived in Australia between 2 million and 46,000 years ago. The Kangaroo lion was once the largest mammalian predator. With extremely powerful forelimbs and huge claws on its thumbs that could tear apart its prey, this 1.5-meter-long predator could easily take down animals much larger than itself. It had the strongest bite of any extant or extinct mammal.

2. Strangler Anaconda

The Anaconda is the largest known snake in Australia, measuring about 9 meters in length. Its standard common name is Bluff Downs Giant Python, and like other pythons, it is a non-venomous python that will die by wrapping itself around its unfortunate prey and squeezing until it suffocates. It may eat mammals, birds, and other vertebrates like a live olive python. This reptile became extinct during the Eocene period about 2.58 million years ago.

3. Quin kana crocodile

Quintilian comes from the indigenous mythology of "Mannequins". The Quintilian crocodile is a terrestrial crocodile, which means that it spent most of its life on land. Its body has long legs to allow it to "gallop". It was 6 meters long, and the species only became extinct about 40,000 years ago.

4. Ancient giant lizard

Archaeology is an extinct and very large giant lizard. They were part of the megafauna that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene. They appear to have disappeared between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago. They may have been encountered by the first Aboriginal settlers in Australia. The Archaeology had a maximum length of 7 meters, making it one of the largest predators of its time.

5. Melanie

This 2.5-meter-long turtle appears to be an evolutionary return to the beetles that went extinct 65 million years ago. This species had horns on its head and a club-like tail. The last remnant population became extinct about 2000 years ago. It is the second largest known non-marine or land turtle. It is believed that they were hunted to extinction by the La pita people about 3000 years ago, based on the presence of bones at the bottom of trash heaps at archaeological sites.

6. Australian Running Bird

Modernism (Australian Runner) is a prehistoric bird that stands 3 meters tall and weighs up to half a ton. Although they look like giant emus, the Australian penguin is more closely related to a waterfowl. It has a long neck and short, truncated wings that prevent it from flying. Its legs are strong, but it is not said to be a fast runner. The bird's large, powerful bill led early researchers to believe that it was used to cut hard plant stems. More recently, however, others believe that the size of the bill suggests that the bird was a predator.

7. Giant short-faced kangaroo

Production (giant short-faced kangaroo) is a genus of giant short-faced kangaroos that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene. p. Goliath is the largest known kangaroo ever, standing about 2 meters tall, and they weigh about 232 kilograms. These animals lived with the modern kangaroo species, but it was feeding on the leaves of trees and shrubs. The genus did not become extinct until at least about 50,000 years ago, although there is some evidence that they may have survived as recently as 18,000 years ago. Its extinction may have been caused by climate change or human hunting during the Pleistocene.

8. Giant long-nosed echidna

Colossus Hacker (giant long-nosed echidna) is an extinct long-beaked echidna from Western Australia that dates back to the Pleistocene. It is known only from a few bones. It was about 1 meter long and weighed about 30 kg. Its legs were longer and straighter than those of any modern echidna. Presumably, this feature made the animal more adept at traversing dense forests. Some fossils show incisions and burn marks, suggesting that the giant long-nosed echidna was occasionally hunted by humans.

9. Antiproton

Antiproton, meaning "two forward-facing teeth," is the largest known marsupial to date. It existed from about 1.6 million years ago until its extinction about 46,000 years ago. The largest specimen was the size of a hippopotamus: about 3 meters from nose to tail, 2 meters high at the shoulder, and weighing about 2,800 kg. They inhabited open forests, woodlands, and grasslands, probably near water, and ate leaves, shrubs, and grasses. Most modern researchers believe that antiprotons and a wide variety of other Australian megafauna became extinct shortly after humans arrived in Australia about 50,000 years ago.

10. Bag tapir

The Kangaroo tapir was an extinct terrestrial herbivorous marsupial that lived from about 11.6 million to 11,000 years ago and is thought to have existed for about 11.59 million years. It was almost as big as a horse, about 2.5 meters long, weighed about 200 kg, and had four powerful legs. Its front legs had large claws, similar to those of a koala, which may have been used to pull down leaves and peel the bark from trees.