Phascolarctos cinereus

The koala, sometimes inaccurately called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae. Its closest living relatives are the wombats. The koala is found in coastal areas of the continent's eastern and southern regions, inhabiting Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is easily recognisable by its stout, tailless body and large head with round, fluffy ears and large, dark nose. The koala has a body length of 60–85 cm (24–33 in) and weighs 4–15 kg (8.8–33.1 lb). Its fur colour ranges from silver grey to chocolate brown. Koalas from the northern populations are typically smaller and lighter in colour than their counterparts further south. These populations are possibly separate subspecies, but not all researchers accept this.

Phascolarctos cinereus

Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Also called
koalaPBDB
Sits inside
PhascolarctosPBDB
Diet
herbivorePBDB, for Phascolarctidae
Life habit
arborealPBDB, for Phascolarctos
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At most 3.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 3.6 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 11 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 11 of 11 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 11 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–957 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences957 ka–820 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 0.7 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences4.1 Mya0 Mya

11 occurrences of Phascolarctos cinereus 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

11 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.

Phascolarctos cinereus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Phascolarctos cinereus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

174 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Phascolarctos cinereus, 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

8 references

Each of the 11 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. 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 Phascolarctos cinereus

Credit
Diliff
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Phascolarctos cinereus 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 itPhascolarctos through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Goldfuss 1817)