Macropus sp. nov. 'fat-tailed, spotted kangaroo'
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Conservation Status
This undescribed species is purely hypothetical, based upon a single petroglyph from the world famous Burrup Peninsula site. Dingle (2015) quotes archaeologist Ken Mulvaney talking about the petroglyph:
"Unlike most kangaroos and wallabies this has a bulge, a bit like the fat-tailed sheep. It appears there was possibly a fat-tailed macropod that lived in the Pilbara sometime before 10,000 years ago. It actually has what appear to be spots as a decoration… It is unlikely to have been an artistic design embellishment ... It is likely that what we have is an animal that went extinct before the sea levels came in, before the Holocene period of Australia."
He et al. (2025) have investigated rock art images of fat-tailed macropods from the Pilbara in more detail.
Distribution
Pilbara region, Western Australia, Australia
Biology & Ecology
Hypodigm
Media
References
Dingle, Sarah. (2015). Burrup Peninsula rock art shows extinct megafauna and Tasmanian tigers in WA. Background Briefing blog post, RN ABC, Monday 22 June 2015 4:44PM.
He, Shiqin, Gilani, Syed Zulqarnain, Morrison, Patrick, Hughes, Michael and McDonald, Jo. (2025). Pilbara Fat-Tailed Macropods: Using Multivariate and Morphometric Analyses to Explore Spatial and Stylistic Variability. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 32: 12. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09670-9