An analysis of million years old fossils teeth of kangaroos collected in Queensland suggested the Australian state had much different vegetation during the prehistoric times compared to the condition it has in the present era, according to a research published on June 12.

American Museum of Natural History scientist Shaena Montanari, who serves as the leader in the research team, said their study found out that southeastern Queensland was a host to a mixture of different vegetations such as grasslands, wetlands and tropical forest around 2.5 to 5 million years ago. The recent findings also debunked the findings of previous researches suggesting Queensland as an arid land.

"This period, the Pliocene, is critical to understand the origins and evolution of Australia's unique modern animals. It is during this time that the Australian fauna first began to take on its modern appearance and distinctiveness, with many modern Australian marsupials, such as the agile wallaby Macropus gracilis, first appearing in Pliocene fossil deposits," Montanari said in her report released on June 12 in open-access journal, Plos One,

Like the present day kangaroos, pre-historic kangaroos and other marsupials during the pre-historic era also consumed plants as their main source of foods based on the carbon isotope ratios in the fossil teeth take.

Montanari stressed out the importance of their findings with regards to determining the evolution process of kangaroos and the extinctions of large marsupials in the region.

"Obtaining detailed environmental records from this time can help us find the drivers of the subsequent extinctions of many of these large marsupials", Montanari added.