In Depth Lekaneleo is a genus of thylacoleonid marsupial that lived in Australia during the Miocene period. Lekaneleo is a relative of the better known Thylacoleo, and like Thylacoleo, Lekaneleo would have been a powerful predator. Further Reading - Priscileo roskellyae sp. nov. (Thylacoleonidae, Marsupialia) from the Oligocene-Miocene of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland. - Memoirs of … Read more
In Depth Protemnodon was in essence very much like a wallaby, though much larger in physical size. Protemnodon fossils are also known from Papua New Guinea making this genus one of the most geographically wide ranging genera of wallaby. Further Reading - Ecological and evolutionary significance of sizes of giant extinct kangaroos - Australian Journal … Read more
In Depth Further Reading – On the fossil mammals of Australia. Part II. Description of a mutilated skull of the large marsupial carnivore (Thylacoleo carnifex Owen), from a calcareous conglomerate stratum, eighty miles S. W. of Melbourne, Victoria. – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 149, 309-322. – Richard Owen – 1859. – On the … Read more
In Depth Priscakoala is a genus of koala that lived in Australia during the early Miocene. Further Reading – New Tertiary koala (Marsupialia, Phascolarctidae) from Riversleigh, Australia, with a revision of phascolarctid phylogenetics, paleoecology, and paleobiodiversity. - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 32(1):125-138 - K. H. Black, M. Archer & S.J. Hand - 2012.
In Depth Cookeroo is a genus of kangaroo that lived in Australia during the Miocene. Further Reading - Cookeroo, a new genus of fossil kangaroo (Marsupialia, Macropodidae) from the Oligo-Miocene of Riversleigh, Northwestern Queensland, Australia. - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 36(3):e1083029 - K. Butler, K. J. Travouillon, G. J. Price, M. Archer & S. J. … Read more
In Depth Invictokoala is a genus of koala that lived in Australia, for most of the latter half of the Pleistocene. Further Reading - Invictokoala monticola gen. et sp. nov. (Phascolarctidae, Marsupialia), a Pleistocene plesiomorphic koala holdover from Oligocene ancestors. - Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 9(2):327-335. - G. J. Price & S. A. Hocknull - … Read more
In Depth Phascolonus was a genus of giant wombat that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene period. Fossils of this genus have been found at one of the most well-known areas for Pleistocene animals in Australia, Lake Callabonna. Lake Callabonna is especially well known for the remains of the huge Diprotodon, another large wombat that … Read more
In Depth A relative of the more famous Diprotodon, Zygomaturus was another of the exceptionally large wombats that once roamed around Australia. As a genus Zygomaturus has been envisioned as preferring to live around waterways such as rivers and lakes where they could browse upon the aquatic plants that grew around the water’s edge. Like … Read more
In Depth Further Reading – Taxonomy and palaeobiology of the largest-ever marsupial, Diprotodon Owen, 1838 (Diprotodontidae, Marsupialia) – Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 153 (2): 369–397 – G. J. Price – 2006. – Late-surviving megafauna in Tasmania, Australia, implicate human involvement in their extinction – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the … Read more
In Depth Hulitherium is a genus of diprotodont wombat that lived in New guinea during the Pleistocene. Not much is known about Hulitherium, though the arm structure suggests that this genus was significantly more mobile than other diprotodonts. Further Reading Further reading- A new late Pleistocene diprotodontid (Marsupialia) from Pureni, Southern Highlands Province, Papua New … Read more