Australia's Vanished Beasts
Giant Rat Kangaroo
Propleopus oscillans
One of the rarest and least understood of the extinct Pleistocene
marsupials is the giant rat kangaroo, which is known from fewer than
20 individual specimens, most of them represented by jaw bones. Its
jaw and teeth are similar to those of the living musky rat kangaroo,
but, befitting its megafaunal status, it was much larger, weighing
up to 150 pounds compared to the roughly 18 pounds of its surviving
cousin. Based on its dentition, experts have suggested that it may
have been both a meat- and plant-eater. Like the baboon, for
instance, it may have been an opportunistic feeder that dined on
meat, eggs, insects, and vegetation. Here, a giant rat kangaroo
devours emu eggs.