I fear my fate is becoming inextricably linked with ducks (see also On Mushrooms, Socks, and Ducks).
Whilst writing about wombats in earlier blog — Where Skynet Meets Wombats — I discovered that the largest marsupial ever to roam the Earth — weighing in at 3 tons and measuring 14 feet from nose to tail — was a mega-wombat that lived in Australia about 2.5 million years ago.
This triggered a distant memory about sabre tooth kangaroos, so I did a search and found this BBC column and this Daily Mail column.
It seems that scientists in Australia discovered a bunch of interesting animals that you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night while on walkabout in the Outback.
These fantastic beasts — who roamed the land between 10 and 20 million years ago — include ancient tree-climbing crocodiles and flesh-eating kangaroos.
And then we have what the Australian scientists playfully call “The Demon Ducks of Doom” — carnivorous birds standing ten feet (three meters) tall and weighing in at 440 pounds (200 kilograms).
I don’t know about you, but if I ever get my time machine working again, I think I’ll need a few bottles of legendary Australian Table Wine under my belt before I set my destination for “Australia 10 Million Years BC.”