Bunnyip or Diprotodon?

Bunyip

The Australian Aborigines have a legend of a huge river or billabong dwelling animal that attacks people.  It is called the Bunyip.  Its discription includes various and sometimes conflicting characteristics.  But it has flippers or webbed feet.  It is huge.  It has large saber fangs or tusks.  It has a face shaped something like a crocodile or a huge dog.  It has fur.  It has a horse-like tail. 

Some anthropologists think that the idea for this animal may come from paleontology.  A huge marsupial lived in Australia and went extinct about 45,000 years ago.  It was most closely related to the present day wombat.  But A wombat is small,  This animal, which you could call a giant wombat, was huge.  It is called Diprotodon.  The name means two forward teeth.  It was 3 meters or 9.8 feet long.  It weighed around 2,790 kg. or 6,150 lbs.  It was 2 meters or 6 feet 7 inches tall.  This makes Diprotodon the biggest marsupial ever to have lived on Earth.   The below drawing is of a female or Diprotodon Mother carrying her young.  The young is referred to as a joey...like a young kangaroo.
Notice the joey in the pouch.

Diprotodon Mother

Diprotodon with Joey
(NOTE:  This drawing is probably more accurate since the closest relative
to a Diprotodon is a wambat and wambat pouches face backwards.  Notice the
little joey sticking his or her nose out of the pouch below the tail.)

It was a peaceful plant eater.  It may have been preyed upon by the marsupial lion.  It probaly could outclass the marsupial lion if it was fully grown but certainly its young would have been vulnerable.  The Diprotodon was an herbivore and lived in herds.  There was sexual dimophism which means the males were a bit different from the females.  In this case the males were larger.  So the males might have fought each other to compete for females or fore dominance in the herd.

Diprotodon skeletons have been found all over Australia so it was very successful for many years.  The fossils date from 1.6 million years ago to 45,000 years ago.  Since Australia started to dry up starting 350,000 years ago there is some thought that Diprotodon went exticnt because change of climate and the disappearnce of the vegetation type they preferered.  Now Australia is the dryest continent on Earth.  The of hunting by early Man may have been a contributing factor as well.  Man is thought to have come into Australia 50,000 years ago.  ONE Diprotodon would have feed an entire tribe for a week.

By the way, if you thought that date for the Aborigines coming to Australia was a typo, it was not.  The Australian Aborigine culture is the longest existing intact culture on Earth.  The Aborigines have referred to fossils of Diprotodon as Bunyip.  So maybe the more recent Aborigines have seen the fossils and come up with the idea of Bunyips.  But there is also a possibility that the idea of Bunyips comes from an ancient memory of Diprotodon that was passed down over the millenia.   And of course, maybe someday we will confirm the existence of a large . . . previously unknown to science. .... predator species living in billabongs and rivers of Australia.  Then we will know that Bunyips are real.  For now there is no scientific proof of Bunyips.

By the way, a billabong is a lake or pond.  .   .   . not just a brand of clothing.

One more interesting fact.  Some Aborigines identify a type of animal on very ancient cave paintings as a Binyup.  Since their culture has been around at least 50,000 years, they can DO that.  I think that is truly amazing!

NOTE:  The printable versions of these new drawings are found by clicking the buttons up top.  Specifically the All Printables button and the Paleontology Button... and the Fantasy Myths and Circus button.   New drawings are at the bottom of the lists.