Up until the end of the last ice age, there was a giant gannet in the mountains of Newguinea.
According to research published by myself and colleagues, this animal was not related to modern Australian animals. It's a type of primitive kangaroo that's never been seen before in Newguinea.
Most of Australia's megafauna went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Many of the larger species of these megafauna were found in the Australian bush.
There were three giant wombats, two of which were 2.5 metres tall. There are some Australian megafaunal species that are still alive today.
The megafauna of Australia are more well- studied than the megafauna of Newguinea. We have been given hints of fascinating and unusual animals that are entwined with Australia's, despite being shrouded in mystery.
In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, American and Australian researchers excavated fossils in Newguinea.
Mary-Jane Mountain led an excavation in the early 1970s that unearthed the jaws of an extinct giant animal. The species Protemnodon nombe was called by a young researcher.
The fossils are from 20,000 to 50,000 years ago. They came from the Nombe Rockshelter, an archaeological site in the mountains. There are also fossils of a giant four-legged animal called diprotodontids.
The fossils of Protemnodon nombe were examined by Professor Prideaux and I. The strange animal was not a species of the Protemnodon, which used to live all over Australia. It was something that was not known.
It's unusual molars with curved crests make it different from the other kangaroos. The species was renamed Nombe nombe after being moved into a new group of genera.
According to our findings, Nombe may have evolved from an ancient form of kangaroo that migrated into Newguinee from Australia around 5 million years ago.
Lower sea levels in those days meant that the islands of New Zealand and Australia were connected by a land bridge.
Early Australian mammals, such as megafauna, were allowed to migrate to Newguinea's rainforests. When the Strait flooded again, these animal populations became disconnected from their Australian relatives and evolved separately to suit their tropical and mountainous Newguinean home.
Nombe is considered to be a descendant of one of these ancient lines of kangaroos. A squat, muscular animal lived in a rainforest with thick undergrowth and a closed canopy. It got its strength from eating leaves from trees and shrubs.
The species is only known from two fossils. There is more to be found. Is Nombe like a modern kangaroo? It went extinct, why?
One discovery leads to a lot of new questions.
Even though it is very strange and very interesting, little of the endemic animal life of Newguinea is known outside of the island. Most Australians don't have much of a clue about what's there.
The animals I saw at the museum in Port Moresby were wonderful. One species of large, long-nosed, worm-eating echidna can weigh up to 15 kilograms.
There are more than one species of wallaby that don't exist in Australia.
We tend to think of these animals as unique to Australia, but they have other interesting forms in Newguinea.
It is both strange and exciting to see the "Aussie" animals that have expanded into new and weird forms in another landscape.
It's exciting for me and my colleagues that N. nombe may bring new life to paleontology. We're part of a small group of researchers that were recently awarded a grant to do three digs over the next three years
The aim is to inspire young local biology students to study paleontology and discover new fossil species. There is a chance that there is a complete skeleton of Nombe nombe waiting for us.
A PhD Candidate for Paleontology at the University.
Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.
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