What are Some Animals that Lived in Pleistocene Australia?
Numerous exotic animals lived in Pleistocene Australia (1.8 million to 11,550 years BP). Many of these animals went extinct about 48,000 years ago, when humans first arrived on the continent, though some only died off as recently as the 19th century. Pleistocene Australia was one of the first places primitive humanity went after leaving Africa, as massive ice sheets made most of Europe and modern-day Russia uninhabitable. Splitting off from Gondwanaland — an ancient continent including South America and Antarctica — some 40 million years ago, Pleistocene Australia had a chance to evolve its own unique fauna. Some of them resemble exaggerated versions of species still alive today. The primary groups are marsupials, monotremes, crocodilians, turtles, monitor lizards, and many large flightless birds. To humans first arriving in Pleistocene Australia, one of the most conspicuous sights would have been Procoptodon goliath the Short-faced Kangaroo, a 3 meter (10 feet) tall kangaroo that weig
