Palorchestes

Palorchestes is an extinct genus of large terrestrial, herbivorous Australian marsupial of the family Palorchestidae, living from the Miocene through to the Late Pleistocene. Like other palorchestids, it had highly retracted nasal region suggesting that it had a prehensile lip, as well as highly unusual clawed forelimbs that were used to grasp vegetation.

Palorchestes

Benjamin Healley Museums Victoria · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/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
Sits inside
PalorchestidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Marsupialia
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Oligocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiocene — about 4 of 26 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 26 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 19 of 26 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences10–9.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences9.4–8.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences8.6–7.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences7.8–7.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences4.7–3.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.9–3.1 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.1–2.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.4–1.6 Mya — about 4 occurrences1.6–785 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 10 occurrences15.98 Mya129 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

26 occurrences of Palorchestes on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

26 occurrences

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.

Found in

3 formations

Whaler's Bluff — 38.36°S, 141.60°ENelson Bay — 38.60°S, 141.58°EArundel — 37.67°S, 144.80°E

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The named rock units Palorchestes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palorchestes and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Palorchestes and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

216 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Palorchestes, 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

19 references

Each of the 26 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. 7 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Palorchestes

Credit
Benjamin Healley Museums Victoria
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Palorchestes 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 itPalorchestidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Owen 1874