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.