Simosthenurus occidentalis (Glauert, 1910:31)
Giant short-faced kangaroo, Western sthenurine kangaroo (proposed)
Taxonomy & Nomenclature
Synonym/s: Sthenurus occidentalis Glauert, 1910:31 (basionym); Sthenurus atlas hacketti Le Souef, 1910; Sthenurus (Simosthenurus) orientalis Tedford, 1966; Simosthenurus orientalis Tedford, 1966
"The dentary and cheek teeth of this species are about the same size as those of Procoptodon browneorum, but the dentary lacks an extended digastric eminence and the molars have fine enamel crenulations."
(Matthews et al., 2025)
Conservation Status
Extinct
Last record: Late Pleistocene
Subfossil remains of this species from a 33-27,000 year old layer have been uncovered from Tight Entrance Cave, southwestern Australia (Prideaux, 2007:17). However these may have been worked from older sedimentological levels, and further analysis is need to resolve their true age. The species may have only persisted until c.50ka, or even older.
Distribution
Australia (including Tasmania)
Anatomy & Morphology
It weighed an estimated 50kg (Johnson & Prideaux, 2004:557) or 118kg (Johnson, 2006:19) or a mean 118 ± 14.3 (n=5, range 97–136kg) (Helgen et al., 2006).
Biology & Ecology
It was a browser (Johnson, 2006:19).
Hypodigm
SAM P17259 (Helgen et al., 2006:303)
SAM P18298 (Helgen et al., 2006:303)
SAM P17282 (Helgen et al., 2006:303)
SAM P17474 (Helgen et al., 2006:303)
SAM P17301 (Helgen et al., 2006:303)
SAM P20820 (Helgen et al., 2006:303)
SAMA P34930 (Matthews et al., 2025)
SAMA P13671 (Matthews et al., 2025)
FU1650 (l juvenile dentary) (Matthews et al., 2025)
FU2834 (r dentary (cf. Si. occidentalis)) (Matthews et al., 2025)
FU2848 (l maxilla with M2–3) (Matthews et al., 2025)
Media
References
Original scientific description:
Glauert, Ludwig. (1910a). The Mammoth cave. Records of the Western Australian Museum and Art Gallery 1(1): 11-36.
Other references:
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ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/reposit/2007/2007016.pdf
https://extinctanimals.proboards.com/thread/19822/simosthenurus-occidentalis