Giant turkey roamed

A GIANT, flying turkey as tall as a kangaroo once roamed Australia, palaeontologists said yesterday, after an analysis of fossils and bones from around the country revealed five extinct bird species.

A team from Flinders University in Adelaide said they were all relatives of today’s malleefowl and brush-turkeys.

The megapode birds lived during the Pleistocene era, between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago, alongside other giant Australian animals like diprotodons, marsupial lions and short-faced kangaroos.