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hal2k1 t1_jdv1ck0 wrote

Reply to comment by senorali in Why are nonhuman erect bipedal animals so rare? by violetmammal4694

Well they are not native but there are over a million Australian feral camels. These animals are much bigger than kangaroos. Yet there are roughly 50 million kangaroos in Australia. In Australia kangaroos fare better than camels. Effective body plan?

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senorali t1_jdv2bqm wrote

I should've been more specific, I was thinking more along the lines of carnivorous megafauna that would directly antagonize kangaroos. The camels are an interesting case, but haven't been there long enough to seriously disrupt the ecosystem. Given a few million years, they likely will push the kangaroos out of some prime real estate if left unchecked. Every other part of the world has large hoofed mammals and large cats, and nothing quite like a kangaroo.

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Rolldal t1_jdvpgmo wrote

Australia did have some megafauna. Thylacoleo was a masupial lion (101- 130 kg) roughly comparable to the weight of a lioness. They died out during the pleistocene and were Australia's largest known carnivorous mammal. There were also grazers such as Diprotodon (a kind of giant wombat), Palorchestes, plus a few others nearly all of which died out in the pleistocene

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