Vombatus
Vombatus is a genus of marsupial that contains a single living species, the common wombat.

JJ Harrison ( jjharrison89@facebook.com ) · 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
- common wombatPBDB
- Sits inside
- VombatidaePBDB
- Diet
- herbivorePBDB, for Vombatidae
- Life habit
- ground dwellingPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia
Time the record covers
At least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
25 occurrences of Vombatus 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
25 occurrences- Pliocene13%
- Pleistocene78%
- Holocene9%
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
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The named rock units Vombatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Vombatus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Vombatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
275 taxa- Macropus12 sites
- Thylacoleo carnifex12 sites
- Protemnodon11 sites
- Thylacinus cynocephalus11 sites
- Macropus (Macropus) giganteus10 sites
- Simosthenurus occidentalis9 sites
- Trichosurus vulpecula9 sites
- Bettongia8 sites
- Macropus rufogriseus8 sites
- Mastacomys8 sites
- Phascolarctos cinereus8 sites
- Rattus8 sites
- Dasyurus viverrinus7 sites
- Perameles7 sites
- Protemnodon brehus7 sites
- Pseudocheirus peregrinus7 sites
- Pseudomys7 sites
- Cercartetus nanus6 sites
- Isoodon obesulus6 sites
- Potorous tridactylus6 sites
- Simosthenurus maddocki6 sites
- Zygomaturus trilobus6 sites
- Aepyprymnus rufescens5 sites
- Antechinus flavipes5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Vombatus, 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
21 references- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia3
- Wombats (Vombatidae, Marsupialia) from the Pliocene Chinchilla Sand, southeast Queensland, Australia2
- The Munich collection of Wellington Cave fossil marsupials2
- Late Holocene hunting economies in coastal southeastern Australia: Insights from the archaeological fauna of Curracurrang 1 Rockshelter, Royal National Park1
- An assessment of ancient DNA preservation in Holocene-Pleistocene fossil bone excavated from the world heritage Naracoorte Caves, South Australia1
- Man and megafauna in Tasmania: closing the gap1
- A diverse Pleistocene marsupial trackway assemblage from the Victorian volcanic plains, Australia1
- Investigating human and megafauna co-occurrence in Australian prehistory: Mode and causality in fossil accumulations at Cuddie Springs1
- Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the South East region of South Australia II1
- Pedal morphology of the marsupial lion Thylacoleo carnifex (Diprotodontia: Thylacoleonidae) from the Pleistocene of Australia1
- Palaeontological excavation and taphonomic investigation of the late Pleistocene fossil deposit in Grant Hall, Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte, South Australia1
- Mesozoic to early Quaternary mammal faunas of Victoria, South-East Australia1
Each of the 25 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. 9 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 Vombatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- JJ Harrison ( jjharrison89@facebook.com )
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
MorphoSource was 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, “Vombatus”
- 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 itVombatidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Saint-Hillaire 1803