cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/post/937026

Now, to the tree-kangaroos. Between 5 and 3.5 million years ago, Australia experienced a brief pause in an eons-long drying trend. For a few million years, forest habitats expanded across the continent. During this time, evolutionary biologists believe that an ancestral species of rock wallaby gradually adapted from climbing rocky cliff faces to climbing trees. They evolved shorter, broad feet with flexible ankles, and strong forearms with curved claws; all adaptations that aid life in the trees.

Paleontologists regularly find ancient tree-kangaroo fossils in locations as diverse as the Nullarbor plain, in the far south, to the New Guinea highlands. Some of these species were as large as adult humans.