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Scientists have key a raw coinage of pig - footed bandicoot — an extinct Australianmarsupialthat looks like a kangaroo , an opossum and a cervid got a chip too favorable at the local watering fix — and it ’s about as strange as you ’d hope .
Pig - footed bandicoot are long - eared , long - tailedherbivoresthat once scurried about the sandy , arid stretches of central and western Australia for tenner of thousands of years before go extinct in the fifties . Maxing out with a body heap of about 1.3 pounds ( 600 grams ; just about the weight of a basketball ) and a length of about 10 inches ( 26 centimeters ) , these mammals are considered to be among the smallest graze animal that ever live , concord to the authors of a young written report published March 13 in the journalZootaxa .
TwoChaeropus yirratji, a newly-described species of pig-footed bandicoot, pitter-pattered around Australia on their asymmetrical legs.
With two useable toes on their front legs and only one on each hind branch , the bandicoots have a bit of an piece - by - citizens committee look . However , according to interviewsconducted with aboriginal tribe penis in the eighties , the tripod toe arrangement did not blockade the little beasts from " gallop " at surprisingly gamey speeds when distressed . [ Marsupial Gallery : A Pouchful of Cute ]
The aboriginal interviews have been crucial to researchers as there are no pig - foot bandicoots depart to contemplate in the wild ; only 29 fossilized specimens rest in the world ’s museum . In the new discipline , researchers from the Natural History Museum in London and the Western Australian Museum analyse all 29 of those specimens , conduct punctilious os measurements and comparingDNAsamples roll up in the 1940s .
The results express that these cop - footed bandicootfossilsrepresented two distinct species ; previously , researcher thought there was only one type .
The newly distinguish mintage , namedChaeropus yirratjiafter a local primaeval name for the creature , has heavy hind feet and a longer tail than its substantially - learn full cousin ( Chaeropusecaudatus ) , and may have had dissimilar graze behavior , the researchers wrote . Future understanding of the differences between the two species hinge on researchers being able to find more fossil , which tend to be buried inowl droppingson cave floors .
earlier published onLive Science .
