Post by L Roebuck on Aug 9, 2006 11:11:40 GMT -5
Murderous marsupial in mystery cave
August 10, 2006
Thylacoleo could put the bite on anything, writes Brad Newsome.
FOR the giant animals of ancient Australia - and sometimes the people - it meant sudden, bone-crunching death. A silent stalker with the most powerful jaws of any mammal in the world, it could remain invisible until the second it dropped from a tree or leapt from behind a log to deal death with a single, spine-severing bite.
Meet thylacoleo, the "marsupial lion" that terrorised Australia for millions of years and moved the 19th-century British paleontologist Sir Richard Owen to describe it as "the fellest of predatory beasts".
Until recently, the study of the monster had been hampered by the fact that only parts of it had been found. But four years ago a group of cavers who abseiled into a previously undiscovered cave in the Nullarbor 1000 kilometres from Perth found the first complete skeleton. It was perfectly preserved, despite having been there for half a million years.
"It was an immense discovery - you can't imagine," says Clay Bryce, who runs the documentary unit at the Western Australian Museum. "Australia has all these unique animals but no (widely known) predators, nothing big and sexy like lions or tigers."
The closest thing most people know about, he says, is the Tasmanian devil with its "small-man syndrome and bad attitude", but thylacoleo was in a league of its own. Among the animals it preyed on, he says, were kangaroos that were "up to three metres tall and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger - these were a serious kind of roo".
Bryce was one of the executive producers of The Beast of the Nullarbor, a documentary that will go to air in the ABC's Catalyst timeslot next Thursday. It tells the story of the skeleton's discovery, its painstakingly careful extraction by scientists, and the wealth of new information they have been able to learn from it.
Computer animation in the documentary helps bring to life an imposing beast - one that could weigh more than 100 kilograms. It was, Bryce says with a touch of understatement, "not something you'd want to meet on a dark night. When it bit, it really bit. It was a real cruncher." Its huge, beak-like front teeth enabled it to sever windpipes and spinal columns in a single bite. It also had formidable claws to hold and even disembowel its prey.
Bryce says Aboriginal stories about creatures that sometimes ambushed and killed people at waterholes seem likely to be accounts of encounters with thylacoleo.
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August 10, 2006
Thylacoleo could put the bite on anything, writes Brad Newsome.
FOR the giant animals of ancient Australia - and sometimes the people - it meant sudden, bone-crunching death. A silent stalker with the most powerful jaws of any mammal in the world, it could remain invisible until the second it dropped from a tree or leapt from behind a log to deal death with a single, spine-severing bite.
Meet thylacoleo, the "marsupial lion" that terrorised Australia for millions of years and moved the 19th-century British paleontologist Sir Richard Owen to describe it as "the fellest of predatory beasts".
Until recently, the study of the monster had been hampered by the fact that only parts of it had been found. But four years ago a group of cavers who abseiled into a previously undiscovered cave in the Nullarbor 1000 kilometres from Perth found the first complete skeleton. It was perfectly preserved, despite having been there for half a million years.
"It was an immense discovery - you can't imagine," says Clay Bryce, who runs the documentary unit at the Western Australian Museum. "Australia has all these unique animals but no (widely known) predators, nothing big and sexy like lions or tigers."
The closest thing most people know about, he says, is the Tasmanian devil with its "small-man syndrome and bad attitude", but thylacoleo was in a league of its own. Among the animals it preyed on, he says, were kangaroos that were "up to three metres tall and built like Arnold Schwarzenegger - these were a serious kind of roo".
Bryce was one of the executive producers of The Beast of the Nullarbor, a documentary that will go to air in the ABC's Catalyst timeslot next Thursday. It tells the story of the skeleton's discovery, its painstakingly careful extraction by scientists, and the wealth of new information they have been able to learn from it.
Computer animation in the documentary helps bring to life an imposing beast - one that could weigh more than 100 kilograms. It was, Bryce says with a touch of understatement, "not something you'd want to meet on a dark night. When it bit, it really bit. It was a real cruncher." Its huge, beak-like front teeth enabled it to sever windpipes and spinal columns in a single bite. It also had formidable claws to hold and even disembowel its prey.
Bryce says Aboriginal stories about creatures that sometimes ambushed and killed people at waterholes seem likely to be accounts of encounters with thylacoleo.
Article:
Page 1
Page 2