Scientists identify three new species of ancient kangaroo — and one was more than 6.6 feet tall

The giant kangaroos are from the genus Protemnodon, and would have demonstrated more variability in shape, range and hopping method than researchers previously thought, according to a statement from Flinders University in South Australia.

The research, published Monday in the journal Megataxa, is based on the discovery of several complete fossil skeletons by paleontologists working in Lake Callabonna in southern Australia.

This allowed a team led by Isaac Kerr, a paleontologist at Flinders University, to answer longstanding questions about Protemnodon.

One species – P. viator – would have weighed up to 170 kilograms (375 pounds), making it around twice as heavy as the largest male red kangaroos living today.

“With narrow feet, relatively short thighbones and long shinbones, it was proportioned much like the living red and grey kangaroos – built to hop quickly and efficiently,” he said.

“The different species of Protemnodon are now known to have inhabited a broad range of habitats, from arid central Australia into the high-rainfall, forested mountains of Tasmania and New Guinea,” Kerr said in the statement.