Thylacoleo

Thylacoleo is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupials that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the Late Pleistocene, often known as marsupial lions. They were the largest and last members of the family Thylacoleonidae, occupying the position of apex predator within Australian ecosystems. The largest and last species, Thylacoleo carnifex, had an estimated average weight of 101 to 130 kg, approaching the weight of a modern lioness.

Thylacoleo

Uncredited · 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
ThylacoleonidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Marsupialia
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Length
114 cmWikidata
Mass
130 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 3.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 0 of 35 occurrencesPliocene — about 3 of 35 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 32 of 35 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 35 occurrences5.4–5.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.3–5.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences5.1–4.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.3–4.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.9–3.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.7–3.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.7–2.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.3–2.1 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.1–1.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.2–972 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences972 ka–778 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences778 ka–583 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences583 ka–389 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences389 ka–194 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences3.6 Mya129 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

35 occurrences of Thylacoleo 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

35 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

2 formations

D Clay — 35.70°S, 144.83°EAllingham — 19.72°S, 145.60°E

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The named rock units Thylacoleo has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 33 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Thylacoleo and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Thylacoleo and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

266 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Thylacoleo, 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

27 references

Each of the 35 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. 15 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 Thylacoleo

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Thylacoleo 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 itThylacoleonidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Owen 1852