back to article Prehistoric swingbelly KANGAROOS were TOO FAT to jump – scientists

It's certainly Australia's iconic animal, yet boffins have claimed the kangaroo hasn't always performed its most famous trick: hopping. Once upon a time, the Skippy the Bush Kangaroo's ancestors may not have actually bounded along, instead favouring a gait akin to a drunken human. "At best, they'd have been really clumsy …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can it really be called a hop if the kangaroo uses both legs in the takeoff and landing? Surely even less so if it uses its tail as well?

    Just saying.

    1. SolidSquid

      Hopping can also mean moving with bounding skips or leaps. I'd guess it came to also mean bouncing on one leg when "hopping on one leg" was contracted to just "hopping", since the motion of hopping on one leg would match the other definition

    2. Message From A Self-Destructing Turnip

      If it can't hop then it is not a Kangaroo, it's just a very big rabbit with a handbag.

  2. ukgnome
    Pint

    Drunken gait?

    Hop?

    Oh -------------------->

  3. Uffish

    "just got too fat and had to waddle instead"

    We're doomed I tell you...

    1. Chimp

      Re: "just got too fat and had to waddle instead"

      Definitely sounds Australian... Fatty waddling around, clutching his didgeridoo.

  4. Khaptain Silver badge

    What size ?

    This is what I read.

    These massive breasts were also fatter than modern day beasties, weighing some 220kg.

    1. Jonathan Richards 1
      WTF?

      Re: What size ?

      This is as good a place as any to remark that I first read about this research in a short column on the front of the Daily Telegraph newspaper - yes, a real folding one! - on Thursday 16/10, wherein the editors, no doubt out of consideration for their SI challenged readers, had kindly converted the units. The article says "They weighed about 37.8 stone...". Decimal stones, now. Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up.

  5. big_D Silver badge

    Moty Kangeroo?

    Have the Moties secretly paid us a visit?

  6. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Trollface

    No need to tie it down then.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      IT Angle

      No, no need to tie it down....

      Sounds like a bag of donuts would have the desired effect on these 'roos!!

  7. Vociferous

    Something to be aware of...

    ...theoretical analyses of extinct animals are pretty much wild-ass guesstimates with very little basis in reality. A good example is the constantly upwards-shifting "theoretical maximum size of dinosaurs", which started at 30 tonnes -- no dinosaur could possibly be bigger than that, because gravity would break its bones! -- and every time a heavier dinosaur was found that theoretical limit was shifted just over the most recent find. The currently heaviest known dinosaur weighed about 65 tonnes.

    The problem is that all current models have to be based on current animals -- and there just are no terrestrial 65 tonne animals to compare to today.

    It's much the same with this kangaroo. The biggest roo today weighs about 70 kilos, so an extinct 225 kilo roo will be shoe-horned into the bone/muscle strength model of the current, much smaller species, and lo and behold!, the big extinct one can hardly move at all.

    1. Youngone Silver badge

      Re: Something to be aware of...

      The other issue I have with this is that Australia was crawling with massive carnivores at the time, and getting away from them was (presumably) a priority for prey animals.

      I was hoping the Demon Duck of Doom might have been a predator of these fellows, but they were around 15 million years ago.

      1. Adam 1

        Re: Something to be aware of...

        >The other issue I have with this is that Australia was crawling with massive carnivores at the time, and getting away from them was (presumably) a priority for prey animals.

        Possibly, but another possibility is if it was also a common ancestor to the common drop bear then perhaps it had no need to get away from anything. Would also explain how they got so fat.

  8. xeroks
    Coat

    The Sthenurine Contingency

    They sound like one of Dr. Who's crappier foes.

    1. Scroticus Canis
      Coat

      Re: The Sthenurine Contingency - crappier foes?

      Think the crappier foes would have been the Sthenturds, this lot were more pissy if the names anything to go by. Just saying.

  9. Neoc

    I remember a study quite a while ago that "proved" that kangaroos could not possibly eat enough to supply the power needed to hop around all day... until someone pointed out the study calculated the energy requirements of dead-lifting the roo's weight instead of taking into account the spring-like action of the leg muscles. If memory serves, the whole think was put to rest by Terry Dawson in the 70's using kangaroos, a treadmill and a modified breathing mask.

    So I'll take this new study with a sprinkle of salt until it has been properly peer-reviewed, thank you.

  10. Denarius
    Joke

    Not extinct

    became omnivorous. Usually found near Maccas or chook mortuaries.

  11. Winkypop Silver badge
    Pint

    Got too fat and had to waddle instead.

    Sounds like Friday night after drinks around here...

  12. Lapun Mankimasta

    It's not actually:

    Flipper, Flipper

    Flipper the Bush Kangaroo

    Flipper, Flipper

    Flipper, our friend ever true.

    More like:

    Waddler, Waddler

    Waddler the Bush Kangaroo

    Waddler, Waddler

    Waddler, our friend ever true.

    1. Pookietoo

      re: Flipper

      Er ... Flipper was a TV dolphin, the kangaroo was Skippy.

      1. TheOtherHobbes

        Re: re: Flipper

        And there is a conspiracy of silence hiding the TERRIBLE HISTORY of GIANT OBESE WADDLING DOLPHINS from the LAST ICE AGE with their own TV SHOWS.

        Unless you count Strictly Come Dancing, I guess.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: re: Flipper

        Not in the 1985 episode of The Wow Show entitled "Gonad's Alamo". Definatly Flipper the bush kangeroo (actually the Dolphin of France), fleeing from the Inquisition on a train. Or something like that...

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