Home › Extinct Whales and Wombats › Extinct Whales and Wombats: Australia

Extinct Whales and Wombats: Australia

Some of the ancient kangaroos of Australia, that lived during the Pleistocene period, were very much larger than those we see now in that country. One of the most remarkable of the extinct marsupials of Australia was the Diprotodon, of which a skull, measuring nearly three feet in length, may be seen in the Natural History Museum, and it was so named on account of its two front teeth. The creature itself was probably even larger than a rhinoceros of the present day (standing six feet high), and is believed to have resembled a modern Wombat. The restored skeleton shown in Plate LV. will be presently explained. The history of the gradual discovery of this strange marsupial may now be briefly given, since it serves to show how little ground there is for the popular belief that a Cuvier or an Owen could "restore" a whole animal from a jaw, or even a single tooth! Sir R. Owen himself was obliged to admit that his first conclusion, drawn from FIG. 112. Skull of Diprotodon, a kind of Wombat, from Pleistocene strata, Australia. A man's skull placed for comparison. part of a jaw of Diprotodon, was quite wrong, as we shall see from the following account.