Wynyardia
| Wynyardia | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Miocene | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Wynyardia | ||||||||||||
| Spencer , 1901 | ||||||||||||
Wynyardia is a primitive genus of marsupials of the early Miocene within the Vombatiformes , which was still the oldest genus of mammals in Australia in themid-1980s.
features
Wynyardia , the "animal of Wynyard ", is about the size of a recent spotted cuscus . It is known for having an almost complete skull , a lower jaw, a hip fragment , limb bones, and some vertebrae . The characterization was based on the skull, as no teeth of this genus are known. The only fossils of Wynyardia were discovered in marine sediments near Wynyard, Tasmania in 1876. In the early Miocene, Wynyardia lived in an ever-moist, plant-rich, broad-leaved coastal lowland rainforest. Wynyardia , one of the largest animals in its habitat, probably lived on trees similar to the recent koala . It could probably chew very well, which speaks in favor of a primarily herbivorous diet, even if an opportunistic carnivorous diet cannot be ruled out.
Types and systematics
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Position of Wynyardia within the Vombatomorphia according to Myers et al. 1999
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Only one species is known. Wynyardia bassiana SPENCER, 1901 lived in the early Miocene and belongs to the Wynyard local fauna of Tasmania. Its species name means "animal from Wynyard on Bass Strait ". Wynyardia forms together with Muramura and Namilamadeta the family Wynyardiidae , which has no close relationship to other families of the vombatiform Diprotodontia , although a relationship to the superfamily Diprotodontiodea is assumed.
literature
- Long, Archer, Flannery, Hand: Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea, one hundred million years of evolution . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore / London 2002, ISBN 0-8018-7223-5 .
- PV Rich, GF van Tets: Kadimakara, Extinct Vertebrates of Australia . Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1990
Individual evidence
- ↑ In: Long, Archer, Flannery, Hand: Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea, one hundred million years of evolution