''Brachalletes'' was an early

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...

from the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

deposits of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Its relationship with other marsupial species is under debate. The

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

. The species was assigned to the order

Diprotodontia Diprotodontia (, from Greek language, Greek "two forward teeth") is the largest extant order (biology), order of marsupials, with about 155 species, including the kangaroos, Wallaby, wallabies, Phalangeriformes, possums, koala, wombats, and many ...

, suborder

Macropodiformes The Macropodiformes , also known as macropods, are one of the three suborders of the large marsupial order Diprotodontia. They may in fact be nested within one of the suborders, Phalangeriformes. Kangaroos, wallabies and allies, bettongs, potor ...

, and family

Hypsiprymnodontidae The Hypsiprymnodontidae are a family of macropods, one of two families containing animals commonly referred to as rat-kangaroos. The single known extant genus and species in this family, the musky rat-kangaroo, ''Hypsiprymnodon moschatus'', oc ...

by McKenna and Bell in 1997, though it is placed in its own order by other authorities. The species is described as an active

carnivore A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

.The Paleobiology Database
/ref> The first description of the species ''Brachalletes palmeri'' was assigned to a new genus by the author Charles De Vis, suggesting that it was probably distinguishable from the genus ''

Procoptodon ''Procoptodon'' is an extinct genus of giant short-faced (sthenurine) kangaroos that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch. ''P. goliah'', the largest known kangaroo species that ever existed, stood at about . They weighed about . Other ...

''. The specimens obtained at the Chinchilla site were presented to the

Linnean Society of New South Wales The Linnean Society of New South Wales promotes ''the Cultivation and Study of the Science of Natural History in all its Branches'' and was founded in Sydney, New South Wales (Australia) in 1874 and incorporated in 1884. History The Society succe ...

and published in its journal in 1883. The genus name was intended to allude what was estimated to be a "contracted gait" of the new macropod, the specific epithet was an honour to

Arthur Hunter Palmer Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer (28 December 1819 – 20 March 1898) was an Irish-Australian politician who served as the fifth Premier of Queensland, in office from 1870 to 1874. He later held ministerial office in Thomas McIlwraith's ministry from ...

, who had assisted in the collection of the specimens.

References

Prehistoric mammals of Australia Prehistoric diprotodonts Pleistocene marsupials Prehistoric marsupial genera Fossil taxa described in 1883 {{paleo-marsupial-stub