Thylacinus (Marsupialia: Thylacinidae) from the Mio-Pliocene boundary and the diversity of Late Neogene thylacinids in Australia

Abstract

Thylacinus yorkellus is described as a new, moderately small-bodied species of thylacinid from the latest Miocene or, more likely, earliest Pliocene of South Australia. The new species can be diagnosed by the autapomorphic presence a strongly developed precingulid that terminates in a cuspidule on the anterobuccal face of the paraconid of the lower molars and a tiny basal anterior cuspidule on P2, P3 and the lower molars. It is found by cladistic analysis to be the sister species of the recently extinct Th. cynocephalus and distinct from the approximately coeval Th. megiriani from the Northern Territory. New dentary material is described and referred to Th. megiriani. These add character data and allow this species to be re-diagnosed based on autapomorphic character traits. Each of the three known late Miocene to early Pliocene Thylacinus species (Th. potens, Th. megiriani and Th. yorkellus) suggest that, instead of declining, there was a modest radiation of Thylacinus in the late Miocene.

Keywords

• Thylacinus
• Thylacinidae
• Neogene
• Australia
• Diversity