Propleopus

Propleopus Temporal range: 4.3–0.055  Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓ Pliocene - Pleistocene
Diagram of the holotype of P. oscillans
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Marsupialia
Order:	Diprotodontia
Family:	Hypsiprymnodontidae
Genus:	† Propleopus Longman, 1924 [1]
Type species
Triclis oscillans De Vis, 1888 [2]
Species [3]
P. oscillans(De Vis, 1888) P. chillagoensisArcher, Bartholomai & Marshall, 1978 P. wellingtonensisArcher & Flannery, 1985

Propleopus is an extinct genus of marsupials. The genus contains three species: P. chillagoensis from the Plio-Pleistocene, and P. oscillans and P. wellingtonensis from the Pleistocene. ^[4]

Discovery and naming

The type species Propleopus oscillans was first named under the genus Triclis by Charles Walter De Vis in 1888. ^[2] Because the German entomologist Hermann Loew had already named the genus Triclis for a robber fly in 1851, Albert Heber Longman named a replacement name Propleopus in 1924, combining the prefix pró (πρό, 'before') with pleopus, the latter in reference to the junior synonym of Hypsiprymnodon moschatus : Pleopus nudicaudatus named by Richard Owen in 1877. ^[1] In 1978 and 1985, Archer and colleagues named two more species, P. chillagoensis and P. wellingtonensis, and provided a taxonomic revision of the genus. ^[3]

Description

Speculative life restoration

In contrast to most other kangaroos, and similar to their small extant relative, the musky rat-kangaroo, they were probably omnivorous and quadrupedal. ^[5] Propleopus is estimated to have weighed around 35.5–47.1 kilograms (78–104 lb). ^[6]

References

1. Longman, Heber A. (1924). "Some Queensland fossil vertebrates". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 8: 16–28.
2. De Vis, C.W. (1888). "On an extinct genus of the marsupials allied to Hypsiprymnodon". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 13. Linnean Society of New South Wales.: 5–8.
3. Archer, M.; Flannery, T. (1985). "Revision of the Extinct Gigantic Rat Kangaroos (Potoroidae: Marsupialia), with Description of a New Miocene Genus and Species and a New Pleistocene Species of Propleopus". Journal of Paleontology. 59 (6): 1331–1349. ISSN   0022-3360. JSTOR   1304948.
4. Wroe, S. (1996). "An Investigation of Phylogeny in the Giant Extinct Rat Kangaroo Ekaltadeta (Propleopinae, Potoroidae, Marsupialia)". Journal of Paleontology. 70 (4): 681–690. Bibcode:1996JPal...70..681W. doi:10.1017/S0022336000023635. ISSN   0022-3360. JSTOR   1306529. S2CID   86211685.
5. Ride, W.D.L.; Pridmore, P.A.; Barwick, R.E.; Wells, R.T.; Heady, R.D. (1997). "Towards a Biology of Propleopus oscillans (Marsupialia: Propleopinae, Hypsiprymnodontidae)". Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 117: 243–326.
6. Wroe, S.; Argot, C.; Dickman, C (2004). "On the rarity of big fierce carnivores and primacy of isolation and area: tracking large mammalian carnivore diversity on two isolated continents". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 271 (1544): 1203–1211. doi:10.1098/rspb.2004.2694.

• John A. Long et al.: Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 2003, ISBN   0-8018-7223-5.
• "Propleopus (Genus)". ZipcodeZoo.com. Archived from the original on 2012-01-26.
• THE GIANT RAT-KANGAROO PROPLEOPUS OSCILLANS (DE VIS) ^{[ permanent dead link ]}