What actually is a kangaroo? And how long have they been the giant red or grey hopping things so synonymous with Australia? In this episode of Palaeo Jam, host Michael Mills chats with Dr Isaac Kerr about the origin of kangaroos as “weird possums that lived in the trees a bit”, the significant gaps in the kangaroo origin fossil record, and how we make sense of what we’ve got. In a wide ranging conversation about kangaroo origins, they also discuss why of all the locomotion strategies that could have been adopted, Australia is the only place where large animals have taken to hopping.

You can follow Isaac on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/isaacarkerr.bsky.social

Isaac’s latest paper, “Limb osteology and functional morphology of the extinct kangaroo Dorcopsoides fossilis”, can be found at…

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.251591

It was in Episode 1 of Season 3 that Michael and Isaac first chatted about the prehistoric group of kangaroos, Protemnodons. Find the episode here…

https://palaeojam.podbean.com/e/the-tale-of-a-giant-prehistoric-kangaroo-or-three/

You can read the full 250 plus pages of Isaac’s remarkable paper on Protemnodon, here…

https://mapress.com/mt/article/view/megataxa.11.1.1

Here’s a link to the Flinders University palaeo team…

https://sites.flinders.edu.au/palaeontology/

You can find Michael on Blue Sky at https://bsky.app/profile/heapsgood.bsky.social

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At Palaeo Jam, we have an Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/palaeo_jam