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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.

 

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