The Diprotodontidae are an extinct

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

of large herbivorous

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 ...

s, endemic to Australia and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

during the Oligocene through

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological 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 finally confirmed in ...

periods from 28.4 million to 40,000 years ago. The family consisted of large quadrupedal terrestrial

browsers Browse, browser or browsing may refer to: Programs * Web browser, a program used to access the World Wide Web *Code browser, a program for navigating source code * File browser or file manager, a program used to manage files and related objects * ...

, notably including the largest marsupial that ever lived, the rhino-sized ''

Diprotodon ''Diprotodon'' (Ancient Greek: "two protruding front teeth") is an extinct genus of marsupial from the Pleistocene of Australia, containing one species, ''D. optatum''. The earliest finds date to 1.77 million to 780,000 years ago, but most speci ...

''. The group first appeared during the Late Oligocene, with representatives that were mostly

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated ...

-sized, and substantially diversified beginning during the Late

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

, reaching an apex of diversity during the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Zygomaturus'' from mainland Australia, and ''

Hulitherium ''Hulitherium tomasetti'' (meaning "Huli beast", after the Huli people) is an extinct zygomaturine marsupial from New Guinea during the Pleistocene. The species name honours Berard Tomasetti, a Catholic priest in Papua New Guinea, who brought t ...

'' and '' Maokopia'' from New Guinea became extinct during the Late Pleistocene around 40,000 years ago, after the arrival of humans to Australia-New Guinea.

References

* Vertebrate Palaeontology by Michael J. Benton (page 314) * Wildlife of Gondwana: Dinosaurs and Other Vertebrates from the Ancient Supercontinent (Life of the Past) by Pat Vickers Rich, Thomas Hewitt Rich, Francesco Coffa, and Steven Morton * Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution by John A. Long, Michael Archer, Timothy Flannery, and Suzanne Hand (page 77) Prehistoric vombatiforms Prehistoric mammal families Clawed herbivores Chattian first appearances Pleistocene genus extinctions {{paleo-marsupial-stub