Giant 250kg kangaroos that once roamed Australia would probably have been able to hop despite their enormous size, researchers have said.<\/p>\n
While modern kangaroos are known for their ability to travel large distances by jumping with both hind legs at the same time, it has long been debated whether their extinct relatives would have been so springy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen [modern kangaroos] hop, the achilles tendon gets really, really pulled and stressed,\u201d said Dr Megan Jones of the University of Manchester, the lead researcher on the study. \u201cAnd that\u2019s great because it stores a lot of energy so when they go to the next hop, it\u2019s quite energetically efficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it does imply that if [kangaroos] get bigger and they don\u2019t change anything else, then you will get to the point where you just snap that tendon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike many previous studies, which have explored whether giant kangaroos might have hopped by extrapolating from the anatomy of today\u2019s species, Jones and colleagues took a different approach.<\/p>\n
Writing in the journal Scientific Reports<\/a> the team describe how they studied fossils from a range of giant kangaroos including species of sthenurine \u2013 short-nosed, browsing<\/a> kangaroos that lived between 13m and 30,000 years ago.<\/p>\n Heel bone of the largest giant kangaroo species, Procoptodon goliah. Photograph: Megan Jones \/UCMP<\/p>\n \u201cThey get up to 250kg, whereas the most we get today in the red kangaroos is 90kg at the absolute most,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n