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More than 40,000 years ago, southwestern Australia was filled with giant kangaroos.
One of those extinct kangaroos, known as the short-faced kangaroo, boasted of having a clawed single-pointed foot (the modern rouo has three toes), weighed over 118 kilograms and ate plants.
According to a new study published in the journal PLOS One, the large jaws of these creatures allowed them to eat tough foods like mature leaves, stems, and branches when other food sources were scarce.
Nowadays, only one animal has similar bones and jaw muscles: giant pandas, which also eat hard-to-chew meat, thick vegetation like bamboo shoots.
In fact, according to the new study, the shape and function of the jaw of the kangaroo are more like those of giant pandas today than modern kangaroos.
"In general, they would have looked very different from modern kangaroos, with thicker bodies, long muscular arms with elongated fingers, often only one big toe on each foot, and box-shaped heads a koala," said Author of the study, D. Rex Mitchell, at Newsweek.
Artistic reconstruction of the short-faced kangaroo disappeared. (N. Tamura)
Jaws like a giant panda
Scientists have already guessed that the jaws of these giant kangaroos allowed them to consume a vegetation that is difficult to chew. Mitchell decided to test this theory by determining the strength that the skull could withstand.
He therefore created 3D digital models of a short-faced kangaroo skull and simulated mechanical forces at play. Mitchell discovered that the giant cheekbones of this ancient animal were holding up large muscles that would have prevented the jawbone of the Animal to break up during giant bites.
The bones located at the front and at the top of the skull form an arch that prevents the muscles from twisting.
According to the study, the physiology of the extinct kangaroo suggests that it was suitable for taking advantage of foods that are difficult to chew more than any Australian herbivore living today. . Modern kangaroos, on the other hand, prefer grasses, flowers, ferns and moss.
A giant panda munching on tough bamboo. (Wang He / Getty Images)
"The ability to consume parts of plants that other herbivores of the time could not offer them a competitive advantage in difficult times," Mitchell said.
According to a 2015 study, short-faced kangaroos did not leave any modern kangaroo offspring. Their closest living cousins could be the ringed hare-wallaby, or Lagorchestes fasciatus.
These tiny marsupials live only on isolated islands off the coast of Western Australia and are threatened with extinction.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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