Protemnodon viator was a large macropod that lived in what is now western and southern Australia during the late Pleistocene, around 50,000 years ago.
Although it was built more like a giant wallaby, ancient mitochondrial DNA has shown that its closest living relatives are actually modern grey kangaroos.
Estimated to have weighed about 170kg (~375lbs) – twice as much as the largest modern red kangaroos – it would have stood up to 2.4m tall (~8′) on its hind legs. But unlike its living relatives Protemnodon’s limb proportions indicate it wasn’t a very efficient bipedal hopper, instead probably mostly moving with a bounding or galloping quadrupedal gait.
Its forelimb anatomy also suggests it was a good digger, and strongly curved claws on its hind feet may have helped provide grip on uneven ground.
References:
- Llamas, Bastien, et al. “Late Pleistocene Australian marsupial DNA clarifies the affinities of extinct megafaunal kangaroos and wallabies.” Molecular Biology and Evolution 32.3 (2015): 574-584. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msu338
- Jones, Billie, and Christine M. Janis. “Hop, walk or bound? Limb proportions in kangaroos and the probable locomotion of the extinct genus Protemnodon.” Journal of Mammalian Evolution 31.2 (2024): 26. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09725-4
- Kerr, Isaac A. R., et al. “Systematics and palaeobiology of kangaroos of the late Cenozoic genus Protemnodon (Marsupialia, Macropodidae).” Megataxa 11.1 (2024): 1-261. https://doi.org/10.11646/megataxa.11.1.1
- Wikipedia contributors. “Protemnodon” Wikipedia, 25 May 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protemnodon