Diprotodon: the three-tonne (6613lb) relative of wombats
October 21, 2023 1:53 AM Subscribe
Skeletons belonging to a gigantic, three-tonne [6613 pounds] relative of Australia's modern-day wombats have been unearthed by scientists in Western Australia's north, shedding light on the state's rich natural history. Related to the modern-day wombat and koala, the diprotodon is the largest known marsupial to have ever lived, growing up to four metres (13 feet) in length and 1.7 metres (5.5 feet) tall, and reaching weights of almost three tonnes.
There used to be this great diprotodon skull on display in the Queensland Museum, they had it in a case set up to slowly reveal a each layer of flesh and finally the face, projected over a strategically placed pane of glass, Pepper's Ghost style. I have a feeling it was a fibreglass replica, but they've had real ones on display from time to time.
posted by Jilder at 2:05 AM on October 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Jilder at 2:05 AM on October 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just imagine the size of the cubes it pooped.
posted by senor biggles at 2:49 AM on October 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by senor biggles at 2:49 AM on October 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
They would have overlapped with the first people of this land ... we don't really know much about them.How did I know to look for this sentence?
Must have been quite a feast while it lasted.
posted by jamjam at 3:27 AM on October 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
You wouldn't want it standing on your foot would you?
posted by dutchrick at 4:06 AM on October 21, 2023
posted by dutchrick at 4:06 AM on October 21, 2023
Just imagine the size of the cubes it pooped.
New theories for pyramid construction just dropped.
posted by srboisvert at 5:01 AM on October 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
New theories for pyramid construction just dropped.
posted by srboisvert at 5:01 AM on October 21, 2023 [17 favorites]
imma gonna ride one into combat during the skeleton war
posted by Jacqueline at 6:13 AM on October 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Jacqueline at 6:13 AM on October 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
But would they have been good friends with the giant sloths of North America? Yes of course and I’d like to see that animated series.
posted by Glinn at 7:06 AM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 7:06 AM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Quaternary extinction event (us, mainly)
posted by pracowity at 8:07 AM on October 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by pracowity at 8:07 AM on October 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
imma gonna ride one into combat during the skeleton war
Combat Wombat. The name for my new grunge band.
posted by mule98J at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
Combat Wombat. The name for my new grunge band.
posted by mule98J at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2023 [9 favorites]
Me: What weird paleontological formula to they have to calculate something's weight to nearest pound from just a skeleton?
Also Me: Why are they using the cutesy spelling of ton?
Eventually the penny drops. In a story about fossils, I appreciate them being nice to living fossils (like me) who still think in imperial units, but it would have been funnier to write ". . . a gigantic, three tonne [three ton] relative . . ."
posted by mark k at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Also Me: Why are they using the cutesy spelling of ton?
Eventually the penny drops. In a story about fossils, I appreciate them being nice to living fossils (like me) who still think in imperial units, but it would have been funnier to write ". . . a gigantic, three tonne [three ton] relative . . ."
posted by mark k at 8:17 AM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
To be fair, in Diprotodon's time they hadn't invented significant figures or error bars.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 8:32 AM on October 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 8:32 AM on October 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I want to know… did they burrow?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:06 AM on October 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:06 AM on October 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
MORTAL WOMBAT
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:28 AM on October 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 9:28 AM on October 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
Just when you thought Node/NPM couldn't get any more bloated....
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:47 AM on October 21, 2023
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:47 AM on October 21, 2023
"That's not a wombat -- This is a wombat."
posted by PlusDistance at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by PlusDistance at 12:33 PM on October 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
Many (many?) years ago I was an "advertising executive" for an AM sports radio station. I sold a lot of ads to car shops, tire shops, bars, and an inexcusable number of law firms that specialized in representing "men's rights" in divorce courtrooms.
I developed an advertising campaign for a paintball "arena" in our area. It was an overgrown field of weeds populated by rusting cars, old refrigerators, and piles of construction debris. I was proud of the man that owned it - he'd been handed 150 acres of lemons and had read something about the novel sport of "paintball" and made for himself a great volume of top-shelf lemonade.
Together we came up with a mascot: "Wally the Combat Wombat."
Legal assured me we were in the clear. We ran the ads. Used the best local talent we had at our disposal to do a completely shitty australian accent. (Oi we got combat, MOIGHT! bloomin onions. blarg.)
Anyway, we'd utterly neglected to trademark or copyright any of it.
Today, iterations of Wally of the Combat Wombat assail me at various intervals in my life. I nod and think to myself, "Yep, I came up with that shit." Didn't really get a penny out of it.
Next time I'll tell you about the custom bumper stickers I had printed that featured a Jesus Fish kissing a Darwin Fish with little hearts over their heads. Wildly popular. Do a little google search on "kissing fish" and observe the millions and millions of dollars that I studiously avoided earning because I'm an idiot who can come up with stuff but can't "monetize" a single thing. Anyway.
Wombats good. Capitalism bad.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:01 PM on October 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
I developed an advertising campaign for a paintball "arena" in our area. It was an overgrown field of weeds populated by rusting cars, old refrigerators, and piles of construction debris. I was proud of the man that owned it - he'd been handed 150 acres of lemons and had read something about the novel sport of "paintball" and made for himself a great volume of top-shelf lemonade.
Together we came up with a mascot: "Wally the Combat Wombat."
Legal assured me we were in the clear. We ran the ads. Used the best local talent we had at our disposal to do a completely shitty australian accent. (Oi we got combat, MOIGHT! bloomin onions. blarg.)
Anyway, we'd utterly neglected to trademark or copyright any of it.
Today, iterations of Wally of the Combat Wombat assail me at various intervals in my life. I nod and think to myself, "Yep, I came up with that shit." Didn't really get a penny out of it.
Next time I'll tell you about the custom bumper stickers I had printed that featured a Jesus Fish kissing a Darwin Fish with little hearts over their heads. Wildly popular. Do a little google search on "kissing fish" and observe the millions and millions of dollars that I studiously avoided earning because I'm an idiot who can come up with stuff but can't "monetize" a single thing. Anyway.
Wombats good. Capitalism bad.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 3:01 PM on October 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
". . . a gigantic, three tonne [three ton] relative . . ."
Per the style guide, the ABC uses
Three metric tonnes = 2.953 long tons = 3.307 short tons.
posted by zamboni at 3:34 PM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Per the style guide, the ABC uses
tonfor the long ton and
tonnefor the metric tonne. Neither of these are the short ton you’re probably thinking of.
Three metric tonnes = 2.953 long tons = 3.307 short tons.
posted by zamboni at 3:34 PM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Womp rats!
posted by shesdeadimalive at 7:22 PM on October 21, 2023
posted by shesdeadimalive at 7:22 PM on October 21, 2023
Must have been quite a feast while it lasted.
To the best of my knowledge, there is only one site with evidence of ancient Indigenous Australians killing/eating megafauna. In that case, at Warratyi Rockshelter about 300 miles north of Adelaide, it is indeed a Diprotodon dating to 44,000 years ago which while not having any cut marks on it also has no gnawing marks. However people probably arrived at least 15,000 years before that, as known from a variety of sites, and the nature of the human-extinct megafaunal remains in Australia is very unclear still. There was probably on the order of 20,000 years of co-existence and a notable lack of evidence of megafaunal kill/butchery practices.
There is some suspicion that Indigenous burning practices altered the vegetation structure changing the food web significantly enough to undercut the megafauna, but this is tentative and hard to really pin down as a causal relationship, since extinction of megafauna would have changed the canopy structure and perhaps allowed larger, more vigorous fires to happen in their absence.
posted by Rumple at 7:25 PM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
To the best of my knowledge, there is only one site with evidence of ancient Indigenous Australians killing/eating megafauna. In that case, at Warratyi Rockshelter about 300 miles north of Adelaide, it is indeed a Diprotodon dating to 44,000 years ago which while not having any cut marks on it also has no gnawing marks. However people probably arrived at least 15,000 years before that, as known from a variety of sites, and the nature of the human-extinct megafaunal remains in Australia is very unclear still. There was probably on the order of 20,000 years of co-existence and a notable lack of evidence of megafaunal kill/butchery practices.
There is some suspicion that Indigenous burning practices altered the vegetation structure changing the food web significantly enough to undercut the megafauna, but this is tentative and hard to really pin down as a causal relationship, since extinction of megafauna would have changed the canopy structure and perhaps allowed larger, more vigorous fires to happen in their absence.
posted by Rumple at 7:25 PM on October 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Three metric tonnes = 2.953 long tons = 3.307 short tons.
Or in official SI units, three megagrams (3 Mg).
posted by mikelieman at 4:46 AM on October 22, 2023
Or in official SI units, three megagrams (3 Mg).
posted by mikelieman at 4:46 AM on October 22, 2023
Three metric tonnes = 2.953 long tons = 3.307 short tons
If we're doing math, let's figure the average adult wombat weighs 60lbs.
Therefore:
60 lbs = one standard wombat
6613 lbs = one heckin' chonker wombat
one chonker wombat = 110.22 standard wombats
110 wombats is a lot of wombats, plus one bebe 'mbat.
Somebody check my math please.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:32 AM on October 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
If we're doing math, let's figure the average adult wombat weighs 60lbs.
Therefore:
60 lbs = one standard wombat
6613 lbs = one heckin' chonker wombat
one chonker wombat = 110.22 standard wombats
110 wombats is a lot of wombats, plus one bebe 'mbat.
Somebody check my math please.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:32 AM on October 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
OK, will do!
Wombat!
Wombat, Wombat, bo-bom-bat
Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fom-bat
Fee-fi-mo-mom-bat
Wombat!
posted by y2karl at 10:45 AM on October 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wombat!
Wombat, Wombat, bo-bom-bat
Bo-na-na fanna, fo-fom-bat
Fee-fi-mo-mom-bat
Wombat!
posted by y2karl at 10:45 AM on October 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
one chonker wombat = 110.22 standard wombats
Or 4.3 gigaridoos if you're using metric.
posted by PlusDistance at 1:53 PM on October 22, 2023
Or 4.3 gigaridoos if you're using metric.
posted by PlusDistance at 1:53 PM on October 22, 2023
Not only do they burrow, they’re not even really bats.
posted by MarchHare at 5:10 PM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by MarchHare at 5:10 PM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]
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posted by y2karl at 1:56 AM on October 21, 2023 [8 favorites]