Quinkana timara
Quinkana is an extinct genus of mekosuchine crocodylians that lived in Australia from about 25 million to about 20,000 years ago, with the majority of fossils having been found in Queensland. Four species are currently recognized, all of which have been named between 1981 and 1997. The two best understood species are Q. fortirostrum, the type species, and Q. timara, a more gracile form from the Miocene. The other two species, Q. babarra and Q. meboldi, from the Pliocene and Oligocene respectively, are only known from a few poorly preserved bone fragments. The name Quinkana comes from the "Quinkans", a legendary folk spirit from Gugu-Yalanji mythology.

Mark Marathon · 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- Sits inside
- QuinkanaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Crocodylia
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Mesoeucrocodylia
Time the record covers
At most 4.4 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 15.98 Mya and 11.63 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Quinkana timara on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
2 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Quinkana timara has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Quinkana timara and its relatives
MioceneWhere Quinkana timara and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
6 taxa- Balbaroo nalima1 site
- Baru darrowi1 site
- Birlimarr gaffneyi1 site
- Meiolania brevicollis1 site
- Mutpuracinus archibaldi1 site
- Nambaroo bullockensis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Quinkana timara, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 2 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Quinkana timara
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mark Marathon
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Quinkana timara 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Quinkana”
- 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 itQuinkana through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Megirian 1994