Discoveries of the fossils of bizarre creatures such as flesh-eating kangaroos and "demon" ducks could hold the key to a lost period in Australia's history, paleontologists say.
Experts believe the fossilised remains of the largely unknown species, which include carnivorous roos, marsupial lions, tree-climbing crocodiles and "demon ducks of doom", indicate an age when the climate and ecosystems were very different from those of the present day.
A team from the University of NSW (UNSW) made the discoveries in three new deposits during a recent two-week dig at the World Heritage Riversleigh fossil fields in Queensland.
Professor Mike Archer, Dean of Science at UNSW and leader of the expedition, hopes the discoveries will shed light on what happened in Australia up to and beyond 24 million years ago.
"We don't know anything that has happened to Australian mammals in that time period, and that's so critical because that's when Australia broke free from Antarctica," he said.
One of the deposits is thought to contain fossils up to 500 million years old.
Prof Archer said the discoveries were extraordinary and unlike anything seen before.
Over the next month, the specimens will be processed in acid and studied by experts in a lab.
"We're going to be hanging out waiting around tapping our toes waiting to see what happens," Prof Archer said.
"What we could see in the rocks was an enormous amount of bones, jaws and teeth. When we actually process it in the acids, buckets and buckets full of wonderful specimens are going to emerge."
Causing much excitement is the discovery of a killer kangaroo, or "fangeroo" as it has been dubbed, thought to be at least 20 million years old.
Prof Archer said the flesh-eating kangaroos did not look anything like their modern day cousins.
"They were galloping kangaroos, they didn't hop," he said.
"They were also far more muscly than the kangaroos we know, with sharp sabre-like incisors and powerful forelimbs to help rip and tear their prey.
"This is pre-Skippy. You never would have thought of being afraid of a kangaroo, but this is a different period. These kangaroos would not only attack, but they would eat what they attacked."
Another of the mysterious flesh-eating creatures is the "demon duck", thought to be the biggest bird found anywhere in the world.
It stood three metres high, had a giant beak and a body mass of 400kg.
Prof Archer said many of the animals were similar or related to others elsewhere in the world, but had evolved uniquely in Australia.
Hundreds have no living representative.
"They are that bizarre. There are literally, probably in the order of about 500 extinct creatures in these rocks," he said.
Prof Archer said a detailed study of the fossils was expected to provide answers about the evolution of climate and creatures in the past, as well as about the directions they might follow over thousands of years to come.
"The biggest excitement is what's going to happen over the next year in the labs as the rocks dissolve and the treasure inside emerges," he said.
AWESOME!!!
