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Description
Diprotodon optatum

Just over 45,000 years ago, Australia was home to a menagerie of strange and giant creatures. Giant kangaroos that walked upright like humans, massive monitor lizards up to 20 feet in length, and of course, giant wombat-like marsupials. Australian megafauna was unlike any other megafaunal ecosystem on earth. Arguably, the most famous animal that roamed the Pleistocene outback was Diprotodon.

Superficially resembling a giant wombat, it was not a true wombat. It was, in fact, a member of animals distantly related to Wombats and Koalas. However, it was at least 100 times more massive than the largest common wombat. With a skull up to 3 feet long and up to 6 feet tall, and 3 tons, this was the largest marsupial that ever walked the earth. Trackways found in South Australia tell us this large animal was actually covered in hair, similar to its distant cousins, the wombat.

Fossils of this giant have been found from Queensland to West Australia. They were among the widest-ranging of all megafauna that lived in Pleistocene Australia. In 1830, a massive femur was discovered inside a cave ~210 miles south of Sydney. At first, it was thought this was an elephant or rhino that made it to Australia. In the intervening years, more fossils, including a massive skull was found, and in 1838 Sir Richard Owen described this creature as a marsupial similar to wombats. He gave it the name, Diprotodon, meaning "two-forward teeth" after the prominent forward-facing incisors this animal possessed.

In terms of diet, like most diprotodontids, they were herbivorous. Their skull was designed to strip bushes and trees of their vegetation. The structure of their jaw and molars indicates they were processing much more fibrous material than other Marsupials. The front incisors could clip the branches before their massive molars processed the vegetation with a bite force of ~2,500lbf.

Diprotodon was once thought to have had around 8 species that lived across the island continent of Australia. The various species were proposed based on the size and region they lived in. However, discoveries made in the 2000s have challenged this view.
A paper published in 2008 by paleontologist Gilbert Price compared the proposed various species and found that the smaller animals were not distinct species but, in fact, the same species, Diprotodon optatum.
The different sizes were probably a result of both age and sexual dimorphism. Understandable since most scientists from the 19th and 20th centuries proposed that smaller species found in the fossil record were proposed to be different species because they had no frame of reference of what juvenile animals should look like.
Price proposed the larger and more robust animals, likely being males while the smaller ones were females. This has implications for how these animals behaved.

Price implied that it was likely that female Diprotodons formed large social groups with their young. Whereas males lived alone or probably with bachelor groups of a handful of animals. This behavior is similar to modern elephants and white rhinos. Some finds could back up this theory. In 2012, a mass grave of 40 Diprotodons dated to around 200,000 years ago was found in Queensland. It has been suggested they died together. Furthermore, found in the Tirari Desert show trackways diprotodontids. Dated to the Pliocene around 4,000,000 years ago, these trackways pre-dated Diprotodon. However, they were likely from the same family, given the size and shape of the trackways. They consist of around 5-9 individuals moving in one direction—further evidence linking group behavior to Diprotodon and its family.
Furthermore, a recent study from 2017 based on the isotope analyses of bones from Darling Downs in Queensland indicates that Diprotodon undertook seasonal migrations in parts of modern-day Queensland. This is unique not just to Diprotodon but to all known marsupials, both extinct and extant.
The likely reason these creatures migrated is that while Pleistocene Australia was similar to today's climate, it was lusher and more tropical than in most Outback regions today. It's believed that, like modern-day Africa, there would be seasonal changes, a wet and dry season. So like modern-day African animals, these giants would migrate to search for more plentiful water and food sources.

This extinct marsupial has been attributed to the legendary Aborigine creature the Bunyip. Some even think that the giant may persist in the river systems waiting for victims to come by. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. Moreover, while some Aboriginals have attributed the skull of Diprotodon to the Bunyip, they also attributed the skulls of elephant seals to this mythical beast. Today, as is the case with most cryptids, it is believed the Bunyip is a mythological creature. Which, while Diprotodon may have had some inspiration for the legends, it's doubtful that a surviving population of Diprotodon exists undiscovered in the Australian brush.

As is the case with most megafauna from Australia, the extinction of this magnificent beast is a mystery. However, both humans and climate change were likely involved in this giant's demise. The changing habitat of Australia's Outback to a far more arid environment and human hunting pushed them over the edge. The common extinction date is set ~45-40,000 years ago.

This was an animal I made a minor mod to. I re-rigged the mouth so it could open and close. In terms of the size of this animal, while I found some details about its size and read up on the study done from 2008, I couldn't get the exact details on sexually dimorphic dimensions.

I did Thylacoleo and Megalania, so I thought I'd round out "The Big 3" with Diprotodon.

Photographs of various skeletons are very hard to come by, and the studies, while they implied sexual dimorphism, I couldn't find any info on their dimensions.
So I went with the dimorphism shown in the model while it was in-game. The average height of the female is ~4.5ft tall, while the male is about ~1.5ft taller at ~6ft. However, this is an artistic choice for Past Meets Present, same with the behavior of raptors and bite force of Thylacoleo, so don't take my word as gospel.

Looking forward to showing this animal in PMP in the coming weeks/months.

Diprotodon by Lgcfm and Ulquiorra:
Diprotodon (Lgcfm & Ulquiorra) | ZT2 Download Library Wiki | Fandom

For Past Meets Present:
Past Meets Present (Pt4 is Up) - The ZT2 Round Table

Description
Diprotodon optatum

Just over 45,000 years ago, Australia was home to a menagerie of strange and giant creatures. Giant kangaroos that walked upright like humans, massive monitor lizards up to 20 feet in length, and of course, giant wombat-like marsupials. Australian megafauna was unlike any other megafaunal ecosystem on earth. Arguably, the most famous animal that roamed the Pleistocene outback was Diprotodon.

Superficially resembling a giant wombat, it was not a true wombat. It was, in fact, a member of animals distantly related to Wombats and Koalas. However, it was at least 100 times more massive than the largest common wombat. With a skull up to 3 feet long and up to 6 feet tall, and 3 tons, this was the largest marsupial that ever walked the earth. Trackways found in South Australia tell us this large animal was actually covered in hair, similar to its distant cousins, the wombat.

Fossils of this giant have been found from Queensland to West Australia. They were among the widest-ranging of all megafauna that lived in Pleistocene Australia. In 1830, a massive femur was discovered inside a cave ~210 miles south of Sydney. At first, it was thought this was an elephant or rhino that made it to Australia. In the intervening years, more fossils, including a massive skull was found, and in 1838 Sir Richard Owen described this creature as a marsupial similar to wombats. He gave it the name, Diprotodon, meaning "two-forward teeth" after the prominent forward-facing incisors this animal possessed.

In terms of diet, like most diprotodontids, they were herbivorous. Their skull was designed to strip bushes and trees of their vegetation. The structure of their jaw and molars indicates they were processing much more fibrous material than other Marsupials. The front incisors could clip the branches before their massive molars processed the vegetation with a bite force of ~2,500lbf.

Diprotodon was once thought to have had around 8 species that lived across the island continent of Australia. The various species were proposed based on the size and region they lived in. However, discoveries made in the 2000s have challenged this view.
A paper published in 2008 by paleontologist Gilbert Price compared the proposed various species and found that the smaller animals were not distinct species but, in fact, the same species, Diprotodon optatum.
The different sizes were probably a result of both age and sexual dimorphism. Understandable since most scientists from the 19th and 20th centuries proposed that smaller species found in the fossil record were proposed to be different species because they had no frame of reference of what juvenile animals should look like.
Price proposed the larger and more robust animals, likely being males while the smaller ones were females. This has implications for how these animals behaved.

Price implied that it was likely that female Diprotodons formed large social groups with their young. Whereas males lived alone or probably with bachelor groups of a handful of animals. This behavior is similar to modern elephants and white rhinos. Some finds could back up this theory. In 2012, a mass grave of 40 Diprotodons dated to around 200,000 years ago was found in Queensland. It has been suggested they died together. Furthermore, found in the Tirari Desert show trackways diprotodontids. Dated to the Pliocene around 4,000,000 years ago, these trackways pre-dated Diprotodon. However, they were likely from the same family, given the size and shape of the trackways. They consist of around 5-9 individuals moving in one direction—further evidence linking group behavior to Diprotodon and its family.
Furthermore, a recent study from 2017 based on the isotope analyses of bones from Darling Downs in Queensland indicates that Diprotodon undertook seasonal migrations in parts of modern-day Queensland. This is unique not just to Diprotodon but to all known marsupials, both extinct and extant.
The likely reason these creatures migrated is that while Pleistocene Australia was similar to today's climate, it was lusher and more tropical than in most Outback regions today. It's believed that, like modern-day Africa, there would be seasonal changes, a wet and dry season. So like modern-day African animals, these giants would migrate to search for more plentiful water and food sources.

This extinct marsupial has been attributed to the legendary Aborigine creature the Bunyip. Some even think that the giant may persist in the river systems waiting for victims to come by. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. Moreover, while some Aboriginals have attributed the skull of Diprotodon to the Bunyip, they also attributed the skulls of elephant seals to this mythical beast. Today, as is the case with most cryptids, it is believed the Bunyip is a mythological creature. Which, while Diprotodon may have had some inspiration for the legends, it's doubtful that a surviving population of Diprotodon exists undiscovered in the Australian brush.

As is the case with most megafauna from Australia, the extinction of this magnificent beast is a mystery. However, both humans and climate change were likely involved in this giant's demise. The changing habitat of Australia's Outback to a far more arid environment and human hunting pushed them over the edge. The common extinction date is set ~45-40,000 years ago.

This was an animal I made a minor mod to. I re-rigged the mouth so it could open and close. In terms of the size of this animal, while I found some details about its size and read up on the study done from 2008, I couldn't get the exact details on sexually dimorphic dimensions.

I did Thylacoleo and Megalania, so I thought I'd round out "The Big 3" with Diprotodon.

Photographs of various skeletons are very hard to come by, and the studies, while they implied sexual dimorphism, I couldn't find any info on their dimensions.
So I went with the dimorphism shown in the model while it was in-game. The average height of the female is ~4.5ft tall, while the male is about ~1.5ft taller at ~6ft. However, this is an artistic choice for Past Meets Present, same with the behavior of raptors and bite force of Thylacoleo, so don't take my word as gospel.

Looking forward to showing this animal in PMP in the coming weeks/months.

Diprotodon by Lgcfm and Ulquiorra:
Diprotodon (Lgcfm & Ulquiorra) | ZT2 Download Library Wiki | Fandom

For Past Meets Present:
Past Meets Present (Pt4 is Up) - The ZT2 Round Table