Warendja wakefieldi Hope & Wilkinson, 1982
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: Late Pleistocene
Distribution
Victoria, Australia
Anatomy & Morphology
It weighed an estimated 10kg (Johnson & Prideaux, 2004:557; Johnson, 2006:20).
Biology & Ecology
It ate grass (Johnson, 2006:20).
Hypodigm
Holotype: NMV P48980 (a right mandible)
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Hope, J. A. and Wilkinson, H. E. (1982). Warendja wakefieldi, a new genus of wombat (Marsupialia, Vombatidae) from Pleistocene sediments in McEachern's Cave, western Victoria. Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria 43: 109-121.
Other references:
Brewer, Philippa. (2007). New record of Warendja wakefieldi (Vombatidae; Marsupialia) from Wombeyan Caves, New South Wales. Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology 31(2): 153-171. [Abstract]
Dawson, L. (1983). The taxonomic status of small fossil wombats (Vombatidae: Marsupialia) from Quaternary deposits, and of related modern wombats. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 107: 101-123.
Flannery, Timothy F. and Pledge, Neville S. (1987). Specimens of Warendja wakefieldi (Vombatidae: Marsupialia) from the Pleistocene of South Australia, pp. 365-368. In: Archer, Michael (ed.). Possums and Opossums: Studies in Evolution. Chipping Norton, New South Wales: Surrey Beatty and Sons Pty. Ltd.
Johnson, Chris N. (2006). Australia's Mammal Extinctions: A 50 000 Year History. Port Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press. x + 278 pp. [p. 20]
Johnson, Chris N. and Prideaux, Gavin J. (2004). Extinctions of herbivorous mammals in the late Pleistocene of Australia in relation to their feeding ecology: no evidence for environmental change as cause of extinction. Australian Ecology 29: 553-557. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.2004.01389.x
Murray, P. (1998). Palaeontology and palaeobiology of wombats, pp. 1-33. In: Wells, R. T. and Pridmore, P. A. (eds.). Wombats. Gaughwin and J. Ferris, Surrey Beatty and Sons, in association with the Royal Zoological Society of South Australia Inc. 332 pp.
Pledge, Neville S. (1992). The weird wonderful wombat Warendja wakefieldi Hope and Wilkinson. The Beagle: Records of the Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences 9:111-114. [Abstract]
Reed, Elizabeth H. and Bourne, Steven J. (2000). Pleistocene fossil vertebrate sites of the south east region of South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 124(2): 61-90.
Travouillon, Kenny J., Jackson, Stephen, Beck, Robin M. D., Louys, Julien, Cramb, Jonathan, Gillespie, Anna, Black, Karen, Hand, Suzanne, Archer, Michael, Kear, Benjamin, Hocknull, Scott, Phillips, Matthew, McDowell, Matthew, Fitzgerald, Erich M. G., Brewer, Phillipa and Price, Gilbert J. (2024). Checklist of the Fossil Mammal Species of Australia and New Guinea. Available from: https://www.australasianpalaeontologists.com/national-fossil-species-lists [Accessed 24 November 2024]