| Propleopus Temporal range: Pliocene - Pleistocene
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| Diagram of the holotype of P. oscillans | |
Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
| Order: | Diprotodontia |
| Family: | Hypsiprymnodontidae |
| Genus: | †Propleopus Longman, 19241 |
| Type species | |
| Triclis oscillans | |
| Species3 | |
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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
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
References
- Longman, Heber A. (1924). "Some Queensland fossil vertebrates". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 8: 16–28.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. PMC 1691704.
- 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)