The Ilariidae is a family of fossil mammals. Most ilariids are found in the middle

Tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

faunal assemblages of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

. '' Ilaria illumidens'' is the best-preserved representative of this extinct clade of vombatiforms. The species is found in the

Namba Formation is a district of Osaka, Japan. It is located in Chūō and Naniwa wards. Namba is regarded as the center of so-called ''Minami'' ("South") area of Osaka. Its name is one of variations on the former name of Osaka, '' Naniwa''. Namba is b ...

of Late Oligocene age, at

Lake Pinpa A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much larger ...

, South Australia. The material consists of a partial cranium and mandibular fragments with most of the dentition, together with parts of the postcranial skeleton.http://www.tc.umn.edu/~jansa003/NSF/Fossils2.pdf accessed 2010-05-21 The other species in this family are known from a few jaw fragments and intact molars attached; they are categorised in a separate family because their teeth structure is unique among Diprotodontia, in having a complicated folding pattern. Ilariids are thought to be the largest marsupials of their time in the

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains the ...

and Tarkarooloo basin.

References

*Patricia Vickers-Rich and Thomas Hewett Rich 1993 ''Wildlife of Gondwana'' Reed Books, Chatswood, New South Wales Reed. Prehistoric mammal families Prehistoric vombatiforms Prehistoric vertebrates of Oceania Chattian first appearances Miocene extinctions {{paleo-marsupial-stub