''Thylacinus potens'' ("powerful pouched dog") was the largest species of the family

Thylacinidae Thylacinidae is an extinct family of carnivorous, superficially dog-like marsupials from the order Dasyuromorphia. The only species to survive into modern times was the thylacine (''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), which became extinct in 1936. The ...

, originally known from a single poorly preserved fossil discovered by

Michael O. Woodburne Michael O. Woodburne (born 1937) is an American geologist currently Professor Emeritus at University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, ...

in 1967 in a

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

locality near

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory ...

. It preceded the most recent species of

thylacine The thylacine ( , or , also ) (''Thylacinus cynocephalus'') is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The last known live animal was captured in 1930 in Tasman ...

by 4–6 million years, and was 5% bigger, was more robust and had a shorter, broader

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...

. Its size is estimated to be similar to that of a

grey wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, and gray wolves, as popularly ...

; the head and body together were around 5 feet long, and its teeth were less adapted for shearing compared to those of the now-extinct thylacine.

Taxonomy

The description of the species was published in 1967, the author

distinguishing the new thylacine with the epithet ''potens'' for what he interpreted as a "powerful" predator. The evidence for the species emerged from geological and palaeontological research into the fossil fauna of the

Alcoota __NOTOC__ The Alcoota Fossil Beds are an important paleontological Lagerstätte in the Northern Territory of Australia located on Alcoota Station in the locality of Anmatjere about north-east of Alice Springs in the Central Australia regio ...

site.

Description

A larger species of ''

Thylacinus ''Thylacinus'' is a genus of extinct carnivorous marsupials from the order Dasyuromorphia. The only recent member was the thylacine (''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), commonly also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, which is believed to ...

'', greater in size and weight than the thylacine (''

Thylacinus cynocephalus The thylacine ( , or , also ) (''Thylacinus cynocephalus'') is an extinct carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. The last known live animal was captur ...

'') and only exceeded by ''

Thylacinus megiriani ''Thylacinus megiriani'' lived during the late Miocene, 8 million years ago; the area ''T. megiriani'' inhabited in the Northern Territory was covered in forest with a permanent supply of water. ''Thylacinus megiriani'' was a quadrupedal marsup ...

'', the largest of the genus. The animal was similar to a dog in the form of its body and jaws, and probably able to kill prey such as wallabies and other herbivores larger than itself. More specimens were described by

Adam Yates Adam Richard Yates (born 7 August 1992) is a British road and track racing cyclist who currently rides for . He placed fourth overall at the 2016 Tour de France and became the first British rider to win the young rider classification, one year ...

in 2014, also discovered at the Alcoota site, revealing greater variety within the species and revising the weight estimates to greater than 35 kilograms. This material was found in a newly excavated site, named as "Shattered Dreams", that was opened by a backhoe to allow the extraction of specimens. The new ''T. potens'' specimens were a left dentary and maxilla which included the previously unknown anterior section of the dentition. The teeth of the new material exhibited a more gracile form than that previously assigned to ''T. potens'', displaying a closer resemblance to ''T. cynocephalus''. An examination of tooth wear that suggests

durophagy Durophagy is the eating behavior of animals that consume hard-shelled or exoskeleton bearing organisms, such as corals, shelled mollusks, or crabs. It is mostly used to describe fish, but is also used when describing reptiles, including fossil tu ...

, probably bone-cracking behaviour, is interpreted as an evolutionary recent practice, to which the dentition was only partially suited, or a consequence of the ecological circumstances that created the mass assemblage of fossils at the same site. The modern thylacine was not recorded as cracking bones as part of its regular feeding habits, but known as a consumer of carrion, and the individual ''T. potens'' may have encountered a mass death during a period of drought in the sub-tropical Alcoota region. The revision of ''Thylacinus potens'' by Yates in 2014 concluded that the characteristics were closest to those of the thylacine, the most derived characters of the thylacinid phylogeny.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thylacinus Potens Prehistoric mammals of Australia Prehistoric thylacines Miocene marsupials Fossil taxa described in 1967 Taxa named by Michael Woodburne