Fossils may hold key to dinosaur death

February 11, 2006

A fossil found in Tasmania could hold the answer to what wiped out the last of the dinosaurs, says an Australian researcher.

Tim Flannery has been examining the bones of three giant wallabies believed to be more than 30,000 years old, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Friday.

"In these remains may well be the very last of Australia's megafauna -- they may well be the most recent examples we have and as such they'll tell us or can potentially tell us what caused the extinction of these animals," said Flannery.

"So we're trying to answer the hypothesis was it climate or was it humans that killed off these animals and Tasmania's a perfect natural laboratory to try and answer that question."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International


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