Thylacoleo
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Thylacoleo Temporal range: late Pliocene—late |
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| Skeleton of a Thylacoleo carnifex in the Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte Caves National Park | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
| Order: | Diprotodontia |
| Family: | †Thylacoleonidae |
| Genus: |
†Thylacoleo Owen, 1859 |
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Thylacoleo ("pouch lion") is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupials that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the late (2 million to 46 thousand years ago). Some of these "marsupial lions" were the largest mammalian predators in Australia of that time, with Thylacoleo carnifex approaching the weight of a small lion. The estimated average weight for the species ranges from 101 to 130 kg.
Pound for pound, Thylacoleo carnifex had the strongest bite of any mammal species living or extinct; a T. carnifex weighing 101 kg (223 lb) had a bite comparable to that of a 250-kg African lion, and research suggests that Thylacoleo could hunt and take prey much larger than itself. Larger animals it may have hunted include Diprotodon spp. and giant kangaroos. Its seems improbable that Thylacoleo could achieve as high a bite force as a modern-day lion, however this may have been possible when taking into consideration the size of its brain and skull. Carnivores usually have rather large brains when compared to marsupials, which lessens the amount of bone that can be devoted to enhancing bite force. Thylacoleo however, is thought to have had substantially stronger muscle attachments and therefore a smaller brain. Canids possessed elongated skulls, while cats tend to possess foreshortened ones. The similarities between cat morphology and that of Thylacoleo indicates that while though it was a marsupial, biologically it possessed greater similarities to cats, and as a result had a higher capacity for bite strength than animals within its own phyla.
It also had extremely strong fore limbs, with retractable, cat-like claws, a trait previously unseen in marsupials. Thylacoleo also possessed enormous hooded claws set on large semiopposable thumbs, which were used to capture and disembowel prey. The long muscular tail was similar to that of a kangaroo. Specialized tail bones called chevrons allowed the animal to tripod itself, and freed the front legs for slashing and grasping.
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Wikipedia