The ‘great, great, great, great grandfather of modern kangaroos’ walked on all fours and had nasty looking fangs, according to a new paper. Named Nambaroo gillespieae, this prehistoric Skippy had muscular fore-limbs, showing it didn’t follow the body plan that gives modern kangaroo’s their distinctive, if ridiculous, method of locomotion.

“It would be another ten million years or so before grasses started to spread across the Australian landscape, and with it kangaroos adapted to grazing and evolved to hop on their hind legs,” says researcher Ben Kear of La Trobe University, lead author of a paper describing the new species (press release).

In addition, the fossil analysed shows an opposable digit on the feet, suggesting the animal may have indulged in a spot of climbing when the fancy took it. Its canine fangs were probably used for scaring rivals and attracting mates, suggests Kear.

According to a paper published in the Journal of Paleontology, Nambaroo gillespieae was not-hopping in the Oligo-Miocene, between 33.9 million and 5.33 million years ago.

“Looking at a skeleton like this is the Rosetta stone: it’s the quintessential fossil that will give you the beginning of the whole kangaroo radiation. … This is really the great, great, great, great grandfather of modern kangaroos” says Kear (Sidney Morning Herald … The Age).

Image: Corbis