Dasycercus cristicauda
The crest-tailed mulgara was a small Australian carnivorous marsupial. It was previously recognised as a senior synonym of the ampurta, but is now believed to be a separate extinct taxon. The same investigation also described the southern mulgara, and the northern mulgara, which were split from D. cristicauda. As a result of the taxonomic changes to this taxon, it is believed that D. cristicauda is now only known from subfossil specimens and the single live caught holotype specimen.

Intortuz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- mulgaraPBDB
- Sits inside
- DasycercusPBDB
- Diet
- insectivore, carnivorePBDB, for Dasyuridae
- Life habit
- scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Dasycercus cristicauda on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Dasycercus cristicauda and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Dasycercus cristicauda and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
46 taxa- Leporillus conditor4 sites
- Macrotis lagotis4 sites
- Lagorchestes hirsutus3 sites
- Leggandina hermannsburgensis3 sites
- Macropus3 sites
- Perameles3 sites
- Antechinomys2 sites
- Bettongia2 sites
- Bettongia penicillata2 sites
- Dasyurus2 sites
- Leporillus2 sites
- Phascogale calura2 sites
- Pseudomys2 sites
- Sminthopsis crassicaudata2 sites
- Bettongia lesueur1 site
- Caloprymnus campestris1 site
- Cercartetus concinnus1 site
- Dasyurus geoffroii1 site
- Dasyurus viverrinus1 site
- Diprotodon optatum1 site
- Hydromys1 site
- Isoodon obesulus1 site
- Lagorchestes1 site
- Lasiorhinus krefftii1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Dasycercus cristicauda, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- Vertebrate remains from the Nullarbor caves, Western Australia3
- Fossiliferous deposits at Lake Tandou, New South Wales, Australia1
Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Dasycercus cristicauda
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Intortuz
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dasycercus cristicauda was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDasycercus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Krefft 1866