''Sarcophilus'', from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

σάρξ (''sárx''), meaning "flesh", and φίλος (''phílos''), meaning "loving", is a genus of carnivorous marsupial best known for its only living member, the

Tasmanian devil The Tasmanian devil (''Sarcophilus harrisii''; palawa kani: ''purinina'') is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae. It was formerly present across mainland Australia, but became extinct there around 3,500 years ago; it is now con ...

. There are four species of ''Sarcophilus''. '' S. laniarius'' and '' S. moornaensis'' are only known from fossils from the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

. ''S. laniarius'' was larger than the contemporary, and only surviving, species '' S. harrisii'', weighing up to 10 kilograms more. The relationship between the four species is unclear; while some have proposed that ''S. harrisii'' may be a

dwarf Dwarf, dwarfs or dwarves may refer to: Common uses *Dwarf (folklore), a supernatural being from Germanic folklore * Dwarf, a human or animal with dwarfism Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a sh ...

version of ''S. laniarius'', others argue that it is a completely different species and that the two may have coexisted during the Pleistocene.

References

* Long, J., Archer, M., Flannery, T. and Hand, S. 2002. ''Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution''. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp 55. . Dasyuromorphs Marsupial genera Mammal genera with one living species Extant Pleistocene first appearances Taxa named by Frédéric Cuvier {{Marsupial-stub