Page "Bunyip" Paragraph 10

Another suggestion is that the bunyip may be a cultural memory of extinct Australian marsupials such as the Diprotodon or Palorchestes.

This connection was first formally made by Dr George Bennett of the Australian Museum in 1871, but in the early 1990s, palaeontologist Pat Vickers-Rich and geologist Neil Archbold also cautiously suggested that Aboriginal legends " perhaps had stemmed from an acquaintance with prehistoric bones or even living prehistoric animals themselves ...

When confronted with the remains of some of the now extinct Australian marsupials, Aborigines would often identify them as the bunyip.