Giant kangaroos didn't hop on two legs, they walked on all fours in Australia

In an intriguing study, it has been found that the kangaroos in ancient times did not hop on two legs but walked on all fours when they roamed the prehistoric landscapes of Australia.

These mammoth“giant wallaby” kangaroos were ancestors of today's kangaroos and were not agile and bounding like them.

In the research, it was found that such contemporary kangaroos' extinct relatives travelled in quite a different way.

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The ancestors of modern-day kangaroos were called Protemnodon which exhibited different kinds of locomotion techniques which emphasised the diverse evolutionary history of marsupials.

All about giant wallaby kangaroos

The extinct kangaroo species, called Protemnodon, was a giant wallaby which existed in the Pleistocene era. This era lasted between two and a half million to ten thousand years ago.

In comparison to modern kangaroos, these predecessors were far larger, however, they were not really hopping around, as per the latest study.

Ancient kangaroos walked on four legs: Study

It was earlier believed that even though they had large sizes, the ancient kangaroos hopped in a similar way to their descendants.

In anew study, conducted by a team of researchers, ithas been found that these mega-marsupials were actually quadrupedal, which means they preferred to walk on all four legs.

University of Bristol's former master's student Billie Jones had earlier said that the giant wallaby has chances of being a quadrupedal.

The suggested theory was confirmed by the research team after they took a quantitative look at the animal's limb proportions.

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The scientists found that the limb proportions of Protemnodon were not like any other living kangaroos. It's short feet were one of the main reasons why it was believed Protemnodon was a quadrupedal creature.

“There had been some speculation in a graduate thesis from the University of Uppsala that it might have been more quadrupedal in its habits compared to living kangaroos,” said Jones, the study's lead author.

“This new paper draws on a couple of previous quantitative studies that looked at the anatomy of the humerus (upper arm bone) in a diversity of mammals, and concluded thatProtemnodonhabitually put more weight on its forelimbs than kangaroos today," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)