''Propleopus'' is an

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

s. Three species are known: ''P. chillagoensis'' from the

Plio-Pleistocene The Plio-Pleistocene is an informally described geological pseudo-period, which begins about 5 million years ago (Mya) and, drawing forward, combines the time ranges of the formally defined Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs—marking from about 5&nbs ...

, and ''P. oscillans'' and ''P. wellingtonensis'' 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 ...

. In contrast to most other kangaroos, and similar to their small extant relative, the

musky rat-kangaroo The musky rat-kangaroo (''Hypsiprymnodon moschatus'') is a small marsupial found only in the rainforests of northeastern Australia. First described in the later 19th century, the only other species are known from fossil specimens. They are simi ...

, they were probably omnivorous. The species assigned to this genus are: *''Propleopus chillagoensis'' Archer ''et al.'', 1978 *''Propleopus oscillans'' (

De Vis Charles Walter de Vis (Birmingham, England, 9 May 1829 – Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 30 April 1915),

, 1888) (

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

) *''Propleopus wellingtonensis'' (Archer & Flannery, 1985)

References

*John A. Long et al.: ''Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea''. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2003, . *
THE GIANT RAT-KANGAROO PROPLEOPUS OSCILLANS (DE VIS)
Prehistoric macropods Carnivorous marsupials Prehistoric mammals of Australia Pleistocene marsupials Prehistoric marsupial genera Fossil taxa described in 1924 {{paleo-marsupial-stub