''Wakaleo alcootaensis'' was a species of

marsupial lion ''Thylacoleo'' ("pouch lion") is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupials that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the late Pleistocene (2 million to 46 thousand years ago). Some of these marsupial lions were the largest mammalian pred ...

of the genus ''

Wakaleo ''Wakaleo'' (indigenous Australian ''waka'', "little", "small", and Latin ''leo'', "lion") was a genus of medium-sized thylacoleonids that lived in Australia in the Late Oligocene and Miocene Epochs. Although much smaller than its close relativ ...

'', that lived 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 ...

, about 10 million years ago.

Taxonomy

The first description was given in an examination of material discovered at

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 ...

in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (commonly abbreviated as NT; formally the Northern Territory of Australia) is an Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. The Northern Territory shares its borders with Western Aust ...

of Australia. The holotype was a single fossil maxilla fragment found in 1974 by the palaeontologist Michael Archer.

Description

The largest and most recent species of ''

'', a genus of the

Thylacoleonidae Thylacoleonidae is a family of extinct meat-eating marsupials from Australia, referred to as marsupial lions. The best known is ''Thylacoleo carnifex'', also called the marsupial lion. The clade ranged from the Late Oligocene to the Pleistoc ...

family. The size and form is to comparable a small lioness. Fossil material of this species is fragmentary and rare, and it is only known amongst the Alcoota local fauna. Further evidence of the animals cranial and dental features were examined in 2014, leading to a revision of ''Wakaleo alcootaensis'' that provided further support to the separation from earlier ''Wakaleo'' species.

References

External links

Natural Worlds
Miocene mammals of Australia Miocene marsupials Wakaleo {{paleo-marsupial-stub