(via Dubious Quality)
Last week in his Friday Links section, Bill posted about fanged kangaroos and the ‘demon duck of doom’ found in Australia. Given the absurdly deadly creatures already known to inhabit the country on land and in the sea, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised to know there were even more deadly inhabitants in the past (psssst – this is the main link – the whole purpose of this post – if you skip the others, follow this one).
SYDNEY, Australia – Forget cute, cuddly marsupials. Paleontologists
say they have found the fossilized remains of a fanged killer kangaroo and what they describe as a “demon duck of doom.”
A University of New South Wales team said the fearsome fossils were among 20 previously unknown species uncovered at a site in Australia’s northwest Queensland state.
. . .
Vertebrate paleontologist Sue Hand said modern kangaroos look almost nothing like their ferocious forebears, which lived between 10 million and 20 million years ago.
The species found at the dig had “well muscled-in teeth, not for grazing. These things had slicing crests that could have crunched through bone and sliced off flesh,” Hand said.
Crunched? Damned kangaroos. I don’t think I want my bones crunched through, nor my flesh sliced off, thank you very much. Fortunately, these things appear to be gone now. Still, freaky-scary, I tell you. Oh, and freaky-scary is a technical term, I think. Although I haven’t verified that.
[tags]Australia, Freak-Scary critters[/tags]