July 28, 2007
Giant wombat bone found in Australia
SYDNEY (AFP) – Scientists in Australia announced Friday they had found the jawbone of a giant wombat the size of a large car that lived 20,000-40,000 years ago.
The jawbone of the ancient marsupial, part of the “mega-fauna” that once roamed pre-historic Australia, was found by a tour guide at the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
The animal, named the diprotodon, was two metres (6.5 feet) tall and three metres (10 feet) long, weighing about three tonnes.
By comparison, modern wombats are about one metre (three feet) long, 25 centimetres (10 inches) high and weigh 20-45 kilogrammes (44-100 pounds).
University of New South Wales palaeontologist Michael Archer said the discovery, the first so close to Sydney, could herald a major scientific site at the Jenolan Caves.
“If there’s one jaw, there has to be more material and it could theoretically be on the edge of the beginning of a very large deposit and this is the first bit poking out of the wall and that there are some really fascinating mega-fauna fossils in this cave,” he said.AFP
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
Filed under Bigfoot Report, Breaking News, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoology, Evidence, Fossil Finds