Potorous tridactylus

The long-nosed potoroo is a small, hopping mammal native to forests and shrubland of southeastern Australia and Tasmania. A member of the potoroo and bettong family (Potoroidae), it lives alone and digs at night for fungi, roots, or small insects. It is also a marsupial and carries its young in a pouch. The long-nosed potoroo is threatened by habitat loss and introduced species such as cats or foxes. There are two subspecies: P. t. tridactylus on mainland Australia, and P. t. apicalis on Tasmania, with lighter fur.

Potorous tridactylus

Gunjan Pandey · CC BY-SA 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
Also called
long-nosed potorooPBDB
Sits inside
PotorousPBDB
Diet
herbivore, insectivorePBDB, for Potoroidae
Life habit
saltatorialPBDB, for Potorous
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 10 of 11 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 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 0.2 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 0.7 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 1.0 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 1.0 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 1.0 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 1.0 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences4.1 Mya0 Mya

11 occurrences of Potorous tridactylus 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.

Potorous tridactylus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Potorous tridactylus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

193 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Potorous tridactylus, 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

9 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 content2

Picture of Potorous tridactylus

Credit
Gunjan Pandey
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Potorous tridactylus · ummz:mammals:113314

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itPotorous through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Kerr 1792)