Comments on: Anyone Lose a Giant Wombat?

By: Rillo777

Rillo777 — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:39:36 +0000

Was the first picture a modern Wombat? It looks a little like that picture which appeared on a thread a couple of weeks ago.

By: YarriWarrior

YarriWarrior — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:40:42 +0000

No one is assuming Diprotodon looked this way just based on a jaw bone. Diprotodon is well known from a number of complete or nearly complete skeletons. It was indeed a giant wombat. What makes this jaw discovery outstanding is that it is the closest to Sydney that this type of megafauna fossil has been found. Diprotodon was already described long ago. Also of interest is the fact of the possibly young age of this fossil. It may be younger than the supposed great megafauna extinction, showing these animal lived on. The main predator of great beast was the marsupial lion Thylacoleo Carnifex. Yarri

By: Quacker1

Quacker1 — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:32:41 +0000

This is not the first diprotodon ever discovered, just the first this close to Sydney. And just like Flame said, these reconstructions are based off of the natural world around us today. Paleontologists and forensic paleo artists train their entire lives to make well-reasoned, educated guesses as to the appearance of prehistoric beasts. In addition, they could probably also determine how it may have acted and what it ate, and how that may base it into a similar category as todays wombats by studying the fossilized flora and the teeth of the jaw. In all honesty, teeth tell more about a fossilized animal than any other part, and if there are still teeth intact, (they never mentioned it), this is truly an amazing discovery.

By: U.T. Raptor

U.T. Raptor — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:17:55 +0000

This isn’t the first Diprotodon ever found, you know…

By: shumway10973

shumway10973 — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:19:51 +0000

flame821, all we are saying is this, They just found the first part of the animal–a jaw bone. That’s all it is right now, and they have a drawing of the whole thing. How do they even know it’s a wombat? The average veggie marsupial’s jaw structure can’t be that much different. I think the main one that got me questioning the drawings was Nebraska man. It was suppose to be a missing link to mankind, but the archaeologist only found a tooth, which turned out to belong to an ancient razor back (that’s a pig for those not up on Nebraska). Ok, how about this, we only have a jawbone, how do they know what its hind quarter is going to look like? How do they know it wasn’t black with a stripe down its back? How do they know that this one didn’t have wings (they only found a jawbone)? That is all we are saying. I have no problem with forensics reconstructing people and animals we have knowledge of…it’s the reconstructing of completely unknowns from one small piece of the puzzle that I don’t like.

By: flame821

flame821 — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:31:54 +0000

I disagree about the reconstruction. We have forensic scientists and artists who go to great lengths to study and hone their craft. They themselves admit that the colour of the skin/scales/fur is just a guess, but one based on what we see in the natural world around us.

Could this animal be brightly coloured like a peacock or perhaps an albino. Sure it COULD, but most animals will be designed to NOT draw attention to themselves, unless mating, and tend to be in the brown to black, green to grey shades of the spectrum. As evidence and knowledge grow I am sure the pictures will be refined but I would be very surprised if the basic structure of the animal changes.

By: drjon

drjon — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:24:17 +0000

I had a crypto report from a rural friend once that could very well have been a diprotodon from the description.

By: poodpood

poodpood — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:13:53 +0000

I agree with traveler, it’s ridiculous to assume that the beast in question looks this way.

Our notions regarding the appearance of any extinct animal seems to be based on a spurious ability to reconstruct how it looked from skeletal/fossil remains.

We weren’t there, we didn’t see it or photograph it.

I bet if we could travel back in time we would be very surprised how different the common perceptions of ancient creatures differ from the actual thing.

By: bill green

bill green — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 15:25:14 +0000

hey craig & everyone wow this is a very interesting new article about a giant wombat. thanks bill green

By: Alligator

Alligator — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 14:51:15 +0000

A 3 ton wombat? Wow. I’m not too familiar with Australia’s prehistory but I’d hate to meet the primary predator of this animal. I wonder what it was? A reptile like a giant monitor, some kind of marsupial tiger like Thylacinus or maybe even a bird - like the Phorusrhacids, the “terror birds” of the Pleistocene. Anyone here know a bit more about the Australian mega-fauna that would have some ideas?