Giant fossil kangaroos: scientists identify three new species of extinct megafauna

Protemnodon viator believed to have weighed up to 170kg – double the size of the largest species alive today

Supersized marsupials roamed the Australian continent for millennia. But until now the understanding of giant kangaroos – or Protemnodon – has been confined to isolated bones and difficult-to-distinguish species.

Scientists have now identified three new species of the extinct giant kangaroo – Protemnodon viator, Protemnodon mamkurra and Protemnodon dawsonae, which lived from 5m to 40,000 years ago.

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