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Although long dead, fossil skeletons provide an incredible window into the lifestyle and environment of an extinct animal.

By analysing the various features of fossil bones we can reveal not only the overall size and shape of the animal, but also what kind of movement the animal was capable of, its lifestyle, and the environment in which it lived.

But what if we looked inside fossil bones? What secrets would it reveal about the growth and development of an extinct animal?

In a newly published paper in the Journal of Paleontology, scientists have done just that, using 15 million-year-old skeletons of a giant bear-like marsupial from the world-famous Riversleigh World Heritage Area (Boodjamulla) in Waanyi country of northwest Queensland.

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Tree-dwelling wombat relatives

The huge tree-dwelling herbivorous marsupials, known as Nimbadon, weighed about 70kg, making them the largest arboreal (tree dwelling) mammals known from Australia.

Nimbadon belongs to a diverse group of long extinct, large-bodied marsupials known as diprotodontoids, the likes of which include the largest marsupial to have ever lived, the 2.5 tonne megafaunal Diprotodon, and bizarre trunked marsupials reminiscent of modern-day tapirs.

Among living animals, Nimbadon is most closely related to wombats.

Yet surprisingly, in terms of body size and lifestyle, they are more comparable to sun bears, which today can be found scaling the rainforest canopies of Southeast Asia.

When scientists first uncovered jawbones of Nimbadon at Riversleigh in 1993, they thought we were looking at very large leaf-eating marsupials who foraged for food on the forest floor.

But like many of the species unearthed from Riversleigh, the closer they looked at these animals, the more bizarre and fascinating they become.

Nimbadon is now known from its complete skeleton, including material representing developmental ages ranging from tiny pouch-young to mature adults.

It had strong arms with very mobile shoulder and elbow joints. Its hands and feet had specially adapted opposable thumbs with huge curved claws for climbing, penetrating bark and grasping branches.

These animals were highly specialised climbers and lived vastly different lifestyles compared to their closest living relatives – the land-dwelling, burrowing wombats.

Initial research showed that Nimbadon was not only a "tree-hugger", but also a "tree-hanger", spending some of its time suspended from tree branches like a sloth.

Nimbadon lived 15 million years ago in the canopy of lowland Australian rainforests.

These biodiverse, lush forests were home to some equally strange animals: flesh-eating kangaroos, tree-climbing crocodiles, ancestral thylacines, cat- to leopard-sized marsupial lions, huge anaconda-like snakes, giant toothed platypuses and mysterious marsupials so strange they have been called "Thingodonta".

It was a very different Australia than the one we see today.

Sectioning the bones

Despite the wealth of information gleaned from Nimbadon skeletons, until now we hadn't fully understood the growth patterns of these ancient marsupials.

Were they affected by seasonality? How long did they take to grow to adult body size in the canopies of the ancient forest?

Clues to these questions lay in the bones' microscopic structure.

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To look inside the fossil bones, scientists needed to select the right material.

Long bones, such as the bones of the leg, are known to preserve a good record of growth, so researchers analysed ten long bones of several different-sized individuals.

They began by removing a section from the shaft of the bone, and embedded it in resin. Using a diamond-edged blade, we cut our samples into thin sections and polished them further until light could pass through them. These thinned sections were mounted on glass microscope slides to be studied.

Remarkably, even after millions of years of fossilisation, the microscopic structure of the fossil bones had remained intact.

Scientists were amazed to discover that Nimbadon grew in periodic spurts. Individuals had fast growth periods, each followed by a slow growth period, often associated with a band of arrested growth.

Seasonal growers

Cyclical growth patterns have previously been documented for marsupials such as in the living western grey kangaroo. However, results indicate that, overall, the limbs of Nimbadon had a much slower, more extenuated growth than kangaroo limbs.

One individual recorded at least seven to eight growth cycles, which suggests this arboreal giant needed at least this amount of time – and probably more – to become a fully-grown, sexually mature adult.

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Based on these alternating cycles of fast and slow growth, Nimbadon may have been affected by seasonal conditions such as food availability.

However, exactly how long it took for eight growth cycles to develop remains a mystery. If indeed they represent annual cycles, it would be at least eight years until sexual maturity, which is unusual in the modern marsupial world.

For example, kangaroos are sexually mature at one to two years. That being said, Nimbadon is an unusual beast and a very large one at that, so an extended developmental period (and lifespan) is not unlikely.

Real-life drop bears

Researchers have come to think about these strange arboreal marsupials as real versions of the legendary "drop bears" of Australian folklore – mysterious tree-dwelling creatures that would drop down on unsuspecting animals below.

While moving in herds through the rainforest canopy, both young and adult Nimbadon would have occasionally lost their grip before dropping down from the treetops. Sometimes they would end up in forest floor caves, which is where we have been finding their still-articulated skeletons.

Given the constant surprises that research into this extraordinary, extinct Riversleigh mammal has already produced, we are eager and prepared for still more.

Currently researchers are looking into wear in the enamel microstructure of Nimbadon's teeth to determine this legendary drop bear's diet.

They expect that what we find down the track will continue to upend our naïve first presumptions about the lifestyles of this and many of the other strange inhabitants of the ancient inland rainforests of Riversleigh.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Experts are pleading with people to remain vigilant while waiting for their mail, as new data reveals one in five Aussies have had their parcels lost or stolen in the last year.

Of the one in five, around half those missing parcels were reported lost in transit, while the remainder were reported stolen.

Tim Bennett, insurance expert at Finder, said the occurrence is "incredibly obnoxious", but there are some ways we can protect ourselves.

"It's super frustrating when this happens," he said on Weekend Today.

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"You pay a bunch of money for the delivery and for the purchase and then for it to not rock up…the average cost of what's been stolen is about $130 per package.

"You times that by the number of people who have had it stolen, it's almost half a billion dollars…slightly more than half a billion, so it's not a small amount of money."

Bennett said one way to ensure your parcels are delivered safely is to send them to a workplace, preferably an office, which have full-time mail rooms in operation.

"If you're lucky and I'm one of these people – I get everything delivered to my workplace," he said.

"That way it's waiting there on my desk.

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"Use tracking, make sure you request sign-on delivery if you're going to be home.

"If you're not home, you can call the delivery organisation – try to figure out something."

Bennett added he "really recommend installing door cameras" that not only capture "great little bits of video that you can share online if anything goes bad", but they're good for your home insurance.

"They will reduce the likelihood of a theft, depending on the house you have," he said.

"But they are a turnoff. If someone is a porch pirate and they see a camera looking at their face, they are less likely to steal."

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One person was killed when his mobile home was crushed as a powerful tornado tore through a community near the southern tip of Texas before dawn on Saturday.

The system damaged dozens of residences and knocked down power lines, authorities said.

At least 10 others were hospitalised, including two people who were listed in critical condition, said Tom Hushen, the emergency management coordinator for Cameron County.

Many residents also suffered cuts and bruises.

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The tornado hit at about 4 am as most people were in their homes asleep in the unincorporated community of Laguna Heights, located on the mainland across from South Padre Island, off the Gulf of Mexico.

The county has among the highest poverty rates in Texas and is dotted with substandard housing.

There was no advance warning.

Instead, the first warning of a tornado "went out at the same time it was touching ground," said Barry Goldsmith, a warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Brownsville.

"With hurricanes we have the benefit of getting some advance warning; we know it's probably on its way," Eddie Treviño Jr., the Cameron County judge, said during a Saturday press conference.

"With a tornado, like Barry mentioned, it's not a common scenario unless we have a hurricane/tropical cyclone in the area. So, we didn't have the benefit of a warning."

"The hour didn't help," Treviño added.

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Roberto Flores, 42, died after being "basically crushed as a result of the damage to his mobile home," Treviño said.

The storm was clocked with wind speeds of 138-177 kph and was categorised as an EF1 tornado, according to the weather service.

It lasted only about two to four minutes but it ravaged the area.

As many as 60 homes were damaged. The county judge signed a disaster declaration, and a temporary shelter in the nearby city of Port Isabel was providing help to 38 people.

"Apparently it went straight through that community," said county sheriff Eric Garza.

"Individuals don't want to leave their houses because they're afraid that somebody will go in there and start stealing stuff."

Garza said his department is helping provide security for the area, and Treviño said officials were considering a nighttime curfew to help victims of the storm who fear their properties will be looted if they leave their property.

Laguna Heights is about 32 kilometres northeast of the US-Mexico border at Brownsville and is not prone to having tornados, although this spring has been active, said weather service meteorologist Angelica Soria.

The area is also gearing up for the start of hurricane season.

The Texas tornado follows an outbreak of dozens of twisters in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado that caused damage but no reported deaths.

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Two people have been arrested following an alleged two-hour standoff with police in Sydney's western suburbs yesterday. 

Police were called to the home, on Samarai Road in Whalan, at 6.20pm on Saturday after reports a man, 25, was allegedly being held hostage at knifepoint.

It's believed the man was allegedly threatened by other occupants of the home – who were known to him – and demanded he hand over cash.

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During an altercation between the 25-year-old and another man, the younger man fell out of a window and allegedly ran off.

After police worked out a woman was inside with her three young children – two girls aged 14 and 11 and a seven-year-old boy – a perimeter was established with the assistance of the Public Order and Riot Squad (PORS), the Tactical Operations Unit (TOU), PolAir and the Dog Squad.

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After a roughly two-hour stand-off, the man and woman inside the property were arrested without incident after they exited the home at about 8.30pm.

The 41-year-old woman was taken to Mt Druitt Police Station and the 38-year-old man was treated by paramedics and taken to Mt Druitt Hospital.

He was later escorted back to the station.

Each have been charged with detain a person in company with intent to obtain advantage and have both been refused bail.

They will appear at Parramatta Bail Court today.

The children are now in the care of Family and Community services.

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Four Western Australians have woken to life-changing news, having each pocketed a share of the $20 million Saturday Lotto Superdraw.

Each are expected to take home over $1.4 million.

The four are among a total of 14 winners from across the country. 

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Two of the winning tickets were believed to have been sold from Nextra Dianella and Forum Newsagency in Floreat, north-west of Perth, while another two were purchased online.

"We have already celebrated 36 division one winners this year," Lotterywest spokesperson James Mooney said.

WA division one winners had won more than $124 million this year, he added.

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"Compared to this time last year, we were sitting on 26 division one winners, so it has been a solid start to the first part of the year," Mooney said.

The Superdraw's winning numbers were 33, 23, 24, 36, 22 and 6.

More than 322,000 Saturday Lotto players will take home a prize between Divisions Two to Six across WA.

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