Sthenurus
| Sthenurus | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sthenurus stirlingi (reconstruction) |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Pliocene to late Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
| approx. 4 million years to approx. 50,000 years | ||||||||||||
| Locations | ||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Sthenurus | ||||||||||||
| Owen , 1873 | ||||||||||||
Sthenurus was a genus of large, extinct kangaroos . The animals lived in Australia until the late Pleistocene .
features
The scientific name Sthenurus means something like animal with a powerful tail. The name is peculiar in that at that time (1873) only teeth, lower jaw and skull fragments were known. Curiously, the animals actually had robust tails, which was shown when more complete skeletons were recovered about a hundred years later.
Like Simosthenurus and Procoptodon, Sthenurus belonged to the genus of Sthenurinae . Compared to these two genera, which also survived until the end of the Pleistocene, Sthenurus had a relatively long snout.
Types and distribution over time
The genus Sthenurus appears to represent a primitive sister group of the Simosthenurus - Procoptodon line and appears for the first time in the fossil record 4 million years ago. All species in the genus disappeared in the late Pleistocene, apparently at least 30,000 years ago. One species of the late Pleistocene was Sthenurus atlas .
swell
Individual evidence
- ^ A b J. Long, M. Archer, T. Flannery and SJ Hand: Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution. University of New South Wales, Kensington 2002, pp. 161-162
literature
- John Long, Michael Archer , Timothy Flannery, Suzanne Hand: Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea. One Hundred Million Years of Evolution. University of New South Wales, Sydney 2002, ISBN 0-86840-435-7 , pp. 161-162.
