These giant 'drop bears' with opposable thumbs once scaled trees in Australia. But how did they grow

These giant ‘drop bears’ with opposable thumbs once scaled trees in Australia. But how did they grow so huge?

12 May 2023 / The Conversation



Reconstruction of a mother Nimbadon. They had powerful arms, large hands and feet and huge claws to assist climbing through the rainforest tree tops. Peter Schouten, Author provided


Although long dead, fossil skeletons provide an incredible window into the lifestyle and environment of an extinct animal.

By analysing the various features of fossil bones we can reveal not only the overall size and shape of the animal, but also what kind of movement the animal was capable of, its lifestyle, and the environment in which it lived.

But what if we looked inside fossil bones? What secrets would it reveal about the growth and development of an extinct animal? In a newly published paper in the Journal of Paleontology, we have done just that, using 15 million-year-old skeletons of a giant bear-like marsupial from the world-famous Riversleigh World Heritage Area (Boodjamulla) in Waanyi country of northwest Queensland.

Tree-dwelling wombat relatives

The huge tree-dwelling herbivorous marsupials, known as Nimbadon, weighed about 70kg, making them the largest arboreal (tree dwelling) mammals known from Australia.

More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/palaeontology/giant-drop-bear-australia/