This animal has the distinction of being the largest marsupial known, living or extinct. It weighted well over a ton and was comparable in size to a rhinoceros. The largest specimens are 3 meters long and 2 metres tall at the shoulder. Although they resembled wombats, they are not direct ancestors of them, belonging to a different subfamily; the Diprotodontidae. The Vombatidae, which is the family that modern wombats belong to, have rootless, evergrowing teeth. The Diprotodonids had rooted teeth with lower crowns, designed to browse on more succulent foliage than the roots and grasses that wombats make more use of. The structure f the nasal bones has been the source of much speculation; some think that it may have had a short trunk, others think the nasal bones resemble those of a wombats and it had a nose like theirs. I'll have to judge for myself in the future.
Diprotodon remains have been found in proximity to the Pleistocene deposits of the inland lakes of inland Australia. These creatures were one of many animals that did not make it to the present day; probably being victims of the drying climate and possibly a change in the vegetation assemblage due to the firestick farming practices of the Aboriginals. It is very likely that Diprotodon was known to the earliest people of this land and was the inspiration of the bunyip legends. It became extinct about 30,000 BP.
When I think of Diprotodon, I think of thirst. Imagine a weary lumbering beast approaching his local lake once so fertile, teeming with lungfish and crocodiles. Only to find a hypersaline puddle with salt so concentrated that it burns and cracks the parched soles of their massive feet. These animals were the equivalent of elephants in their time and elephants need to drink every day. Imagine the last drink beside the sparkling gypsum crystals of forboding beauty. Imagine the agonised eyes sunken with starvation and the drawn, gaunt face drawing up the last particles of moisture from the spreading dust of the desert.
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