Australia is home to an immediately recognisable array of weird and wonderful creatures.

Now scientists have found evidence of even more unusual inhabitants from the nation's past.

Archaeologists have been studying fossils collected from around the country and discovered the bones of giant flying turkeys.

The creatures were among five species which died out during an ice age almost 12,000 years ago.

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Palaeontologists from Flinders University in South Australia analysed fossils and bones from around the country and found five extinct bird species. One species of giant flying turkey was found to be as tall as a kangaroo (artist's impression)

MEGAPODE BIRDS The megapode birds lived during the Pleistocene era, between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago, alongside other giant Australian animals like the rhino-sized diprotodons, marsupial lions and short-faced kangaroos. Scientists had initially thought the fossils, first found in the 1880s, represented a single ancient bird, but fresh examination has led them to conclude they belong to five different species. Among them was a turkey weighing up to eight kilograms (17 pounds) and standing taller than a grey kangaroo, which can reach 1.3 metres (4ft 3ins), four times the size of modern fowl. Advertisement

Palaeontologists from Flinders University in South Australia analysed fossils and bones from around the country and found five extinct bird species.

The creatures were all larger relatives of today's malleefowl and brush-turkeys, and ranged in weight from around three to eight kilograms (6.6 to 17.6 lbs).

The megapode birds lived during the Pleistocene era, between 1.6 million and 11,700 years ago, alongside other giant Australian animals like the rhino-sized diprotodons, marsupial lions and short-faced kangaroos.

Scientists had initially thought the fossils, first found in the 1880s, represented a single ancient bird, but fresh examination has led them to conclude they belong to five different species.

Among them was a turkey weighing up to eight kilograms (17 pounds) and standing taller than a grey kangaroo, which can reach 1.3 metres (4ft 3ins), four times the size of modern fowl.

Speaking to MailOnline, lead research Elen Shute said: 'These findings are important because they help us to understand our modern ecology.

'It has generally been thought that while Australia's giant "ice age" marsupials were going extinct at a rate of knots, birds sailed through the Pleistocene relatively unscathed.

'We found that megapodes were once much more diverse than was previously realised, and that more than half of species went extinct during the Pleistocene.

'The species we have left are the ones that withstood extinctions pressures.

'Working out what those pressures were will help us to predict which living species are most at risk of extinction in the future and what we need to do to protect them.'

The newly found birds fall into two categories, 'tall turkeys' that had long, slender legs, and 'nuggetty chickens' that had short legs and broad bodies.

Unlike many large extinct birds, such as dodos, these megapodes were not flightless.

The megapode birds lived during the Pleistocene era, between 1.6 million and 10,000 years ago. Pictured - The fossilised bone of a giant flying turkey (top) as compared with that of a regular turkey (bottom).

Evidence of five extinct bird species was found among fossil records, found at sites across Australia. They were compared to the bones of their modern day relatives (pictured) and found to be much larger in size

The creatures were all larger relatives of today's malleefowl and brush-turkeys, and ranged in weight from around three to eight kilograms (6.6 to 17.6 lbs). Pictured - The reconstructed foot of an extinct bird (left) compared to the foot of a malleefowl (right)

While big and bulky, their long, strong wing bones showed they could all fly, and probably roosted in trees, unlike their modern ground-dwelling cousins which build mounds to incubate their eggs.

Two of the new species come from the Thylacoleo Caves beneath Australia's vast Nullarbor Plain, which have proved a treasure trove since they were discovered 15 years ago.

'So far the Thylacoleo Caves have yielded seven new species of kangaroo, a frog, two giant ground-cuckoos, and now two new megapodes,' said Flinders professor Gavin Prideaux.

'The closer we look, the more we keep finding.'

The full findings were published today in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The fossils studied come from sites spread across Australia, from sub-tropical Queensland, temperate southern Australia to the arid Nullarbor Plain. Most come from caves, including the Thylacoleo Caves and the World Heritage listed Naracoorte Caves in South Australia