--- title: Meet the Lumbering, Quarter-Ton, Extinct Kangaroo description: Sometimes the most fascinating animals are the ones that are no longer with us. The oddly named sthenurine is no exception. canonical: https://time.com/3503553/kangaroo-giant-extinct/ author: Michael Lemonick article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-10-15T18:01:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T10:45:44.938Z article:section: Science og:title: Meet the Lumbering, Quarter-Ton, Extinct Kangaroo og:description: Meet the lumbering, quarter-ton, extinct kangaroo og:url: https://time.com/3503553/kangaroo-giant-extinct/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16fad0d01c597b7d/698760d03c16390ace44f0e3/sthenurus_bw.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 600 og:image:height: 338 og:image:alt: Don't call me Joey: Not a kangaroo—but not not one either. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Lumbering, Quarter-Ton, Extinct Kangaroo twitter:description: Meet the lumbering, quarter-ton, extinct kangaroo twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt16fad0d01c597b7d/698760d03c16390ace44f0e3/sthenurus_bw.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Meet the Lumbering, Quarter-Ton, Extinct Kangaroo > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Michael Lemonick](https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/) ## Michael Lemonick Oct 15, 2014 6:01 PM UTC  Don't call me Joey: Not a kangaroo—but not not one either. Don't call me Joey: Not a kangaroo—but not not one either. Nobu Tamura—Wikimedia Commons by [Michael Lemonick](https://time.com/author/michael-d-lemonick/) ## Michael Lemonick Oct 15, 2014 6:01 PM UTC Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, [kangaroos](http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,938455,00.html) gotta hop—unless you’re talking about the eight-foot-tall, quarter-ton, kangaroos known as sthenurines (and no, that is not a typo). These distant cousins of modern red and gray kangaroos went extinct about 30,000 years ago, and their fossils weren’t discovered until the 1800s. When the species at last came to light, it was not easy to take seriously, resembling nothing so much as cartoon versions of its modern cousins. “They were short faced,” says Brown University biologist Christine Janis, “not long-faced like modern kangaroos, and the smallest of them were as big as the largest modern kangaroos. It wasn’t clear,” she adds, “how they could hop at that size.” And according to a [new paper](http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0109888) Janis just published in the journal PLoS ONE, they probably couldn’t. Instead, she and two co-authors conclude after several years of investigation involving more than 140 skeletons from kangaroos and related species such as [wallabees](http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2105239%5F2105240%5F2105262,00.html), the sthenurines walked upright on two legs. The evidence comes from virtually everywhere across the creatures’ anatomy. Their teeth, the scientists observe, look more suited to browsing on trees and bushes than nibbling on grass as modern ‘roos do. That implies the ability to stand upright on two legs to reach the branches. “They also had flared hipbones,” says Janis, with ample room for large gluteal muscles that would have permitted them to put weight on one leg at a time, something today’s kangaroos never do. Modern kangaroos amble around on all fours—or fives, if you count the tail, which they use for balance—when they’re browsing. When they want to go fast, they hop. That’s possible only because they have flexible backs and stiff, substantial tails, which sthenurines lacked. The sthenurine hands, moreover, were unsuitable for bearing their weight. “They would have had trouble walking on all fours,” says Janis. The animals’ very bulk would have put terrible strains on their tendons if they even tried to [hop](http://time.com/49452/robot-kangaroo/). “Some have argued that the sthenurines might have had thicker tendons to compensate,” Janis says, “but that would have made the tendons less elastic. It just seems biomechanically unlikely.” Any arguments about tendons and other soft tissues are somewhat speculative in ancient specimens, of course. “Imagine that we only knew elephants as fossils,” says Janis. “How would we know for sure they had trunks?” The other evidence all points in one direction, however. As Janis straightforwardly puts, “just about everything we looked at made us go, ‘oh, that fits in.'” In the often elegant study of anatomy, the answer that fits is usually the answer that’s right. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3503553/kangaroo-giant-extinct/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3503553/kangaroo-giant-extinct/"},"headline":"Meet the Lumbering, Quarter-Ton, Extinct Kangaroo","datePublished":"2014-10-15T18:01:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T10:45:44.938Z","description":"Sometimes the most fascinating animals are the ones that are no longer with us. 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