Millions of years agosome kangarooshad savagely longsighted eyetooth tooth , at least relative to their small size of it . Discoveries at the famous Riversleigh World Heritage surface area in Australia reveal less time separates us from these fearful fangs than we thought , although we still do n’t really have sex what they were for since their owners were just as herbivorous as their innovative equivalents .
The kangaroo kinfolk appears an exclusion to the call that “ everything in Australia is seek to kill you ” . Sure the larger members can turn in a vicious kick , but mostly they ’re friendly live - and - let - live type . However , they once divvy up the continent with relatives call balbarids , large - fanged appendage of the same superfamily .
Palaeontologists are concerned in the parallel evolution of the two kangaroo families , and why the fanged variation eventually went extinct . Ideally , this might teach us something about dangers to modern - Clarence Shepard Day Jr. kangaroos , 21 of which are endangered or vulnerable .
Kaylene Butler , a Ph.D. student at the University of Queensland , say in astatement ; “ presently , we can only hypothesize as to why balbarids became out – the original hypothesis related to events during a change in climate 15 million years ago . ” Butler has deflate that theory by announcing inPalaeogeography , Palaeoclimatology , Palaeoecologythe find of balbarid specimens from 10 million years ago – 5 million years after the events thought to have stimulate their extinction .
Since North Queensland did n’t have climatical shifts 10 million long time ago like the ones 5 million class sooner , the head of what caused the balbarid extinction remains unresolved . Since fangless kangaroo seem to have reside a similar ecological niche , one possibility is that they became better adapt than their fanged cousins , driving the balbarids out .
Butler recite IFLScience that balbarids and innovative kangaroo share a common ascendant . Unfortunately , there ’s a spread in the Australian fogey record , sometimes know as the fossil dour old age , around the time this occur , so we do n’t have it off what this vulgar ancestor was like . When the dodo record sum up , tiny ( around 1 kg or 2 lbf. ) fanged and fangless kangaroos are found . Over the following 15 million years , both maturate to around 12 kilograms ( 26 Ezra Pound ) before the balbarids evaporate .
The fangs ' design remains a mystery . Butler explain to IFLScience that we have insufficient in full intact skull to determine whether the males possess tumid fangs than the females , suggesting they were used for mating display and battle , like in modernmusk deer . Alternatively , they may have been predator defense mechanism or for digging in the stain for fungi .
Perhaps if they had survived , the balbarids would have grown to the size of modern red kangaroos – or even their giantice age predecessors , bring in the continent even more intimidating .
