Over three million years ago, marsupials weighing over 500 pounds roamed Australia and won the continent’s first long-distance walking champion award. In a study published in the journal May 31, Royal Society Journal Open Sciencea team of scientists used advanced 3D scanning and the partial remains of a 3.5-million-year-old specimen to describe the discovery of this new genus.
Most of the early research on this group focused on its skull, as there are few other skeletal remains in the Australian fossil record. The skeleton described in this new study is special because it was discovered in 2017 at the Karamulina station in southern Australia, along with associated soft tissue structures, for the first time. The authors used 3D scans to compare the partial skeleton with other Diprotodontid materials in collections around the world. A hard stone formed soon after the animal died encasing its foot, and a CT scan revealed soft-tissue imprints on the contour of the footpad.
[Related: Giant wombats the size of small cars once roamed Australia.]
The new genus Ambrator, meaning ‘walker’ or ‘wanderer’, has four giant legs that help it roam long distances in search of food and water compared to its older relatives. was It belongs to the Diprotodontidae, an extinct family of large four-legged herbivorous marsupials that lived in New Guinea and Australia. The largest species is Diprotodon optatumIt was about the size of a car and weighed about 6,000 pounds. Diprotodontidae were an integral part of the region’s ecosystems until they went extinct about 40,000 years ago.
“Diprotodontidae are distantly related to wombats, and since kangaroos and possums are at the same distance, there is unfortunately no exact resemblance to them today. As a result, paleontologists have reconstructed biology. I’m having a hard time doing that,” study author and Flinders University PhD student Jacob van Zollen said in a statement.
walker kenay It lived in Australia during the Pliocene, when grasslands increased and open habitats began to become drier. Diprotodonts probably had to travel long distances to get enough to eat and drink.
“We don’t really think of walking as a special skill, but efficiency is important as any movement can consume energy as your body grows,” says Van Soren. . “Most of today’s large herbivores, such as elephants and rhinos, are directional, walking on their toes without touching the ground.”
Diprotodonts are plantigrade animals, so their heel bones come into contact with the ground when they walk. This is similar to how humans walk, which helps distribute your weight when walking, but expends more energy when running. Diprotodonts have an extremely vegetative hand, says van Zoelen. The wrist bones have been modified into secondary heels, and this “heeled hand” may have made early reconstructions of this animal look a bit odd.
“The development of the wrist and ankle to support weight could render the fingers essentially non-functional and prevent them from making contact with the ground while walking,” van Zoelen said. “This may be the reason why no traces of fingers or toes are observed in the orbits of the Diprotodontidae.”
