Sthenurus

Sthenurus is an extinct genus of kangaroos. With a length around 3 m (10 ft), some species were twice as large as modern extant species. Sthenurus was related to the better-known Procoptodon. The subfamily Sthenurinae is believed to have separated from its sister taxon, the Macropodinae, halfway through the Miocene, and then its population grew during the Pliocene.

Sthenurus

Enlil Ninlil2 · 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
Sits inside
SthenurinaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Marsupialia
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 23 million years on record.

The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 98 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 98 occurrencesPliocene — about 9 of 98 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 87 of 98 occurrencesPleistocene28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.6–4.6 Mya — about 3 occurrences4.6–3.7 Mya — about 4 occurrences3.7–2.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.8–1.9 Mya — about 19 occurrences1.9–928 ka Mya — about 23 occurrences928 ka–0 Mya — about 47 occurrences23.04 Mya11.7 ka27.8 Mya0 Mya

98 occurrences of Sthenurus 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

98 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

7 formations

Katipiri — 28.38°S, 137.68°EKatipiri — 27.92°S, 137.98°EKatipiri — 27.75°S, 140.73°EChinchilla Sand — 26.75°S, 150.63°ETirari — 27.75°S, 140.73°ETirari — 28.38°S, 138.30°EWhaler's Bluff — 38.36°S, 141.60°EMoorna Sandstone — 34.13°S, 141.62°EGambier Limestone — 37.82°S, 140.76°EMoorna — 34.12°S, 141.65°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Sthenurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 85 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sthenurus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Sthenurus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

350 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 86 sites for Sthenurus, 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

22 references

Each of the 98 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. 10 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 content2

Picture of Sthenurus

Credit
Enlil Ninlil2
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Structured light scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Sthenurus stirlingi · SAMA:Palaeontology:P22533

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 itSthenurinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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