''Warendja'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

wombat Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials of the family Vombatidae that are native to Australia. Living species are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . They are adaptable and habitat tolerant, and are ...

. It is known from two species, ''W. encorensis'' from the Late Miocene Riversleigh site in Queensland,Brewer, P., M. Archer, S. Hand, and H. Godthelp. 2007. A new species of the wombat ''Warendja'' from late Miocene deposits at Riversleigh, northwest Queensland, Australia. ''Palaeontology'' 50:811–828. and ''W. wakefieldi'' known from the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

of South Australia, New South Wales, and Victoria. The two species are primarily distinguished by features of their enamel. It became extinct as part of the

Quaternary extinction event The Late Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene saw the extinction of the majority of the world's megafauna, typically defined as animal species having body masses over , which resulted in a collapse in faunal density and diversity acro ...

. ''Warendja wakefieldi'' is estimated to have weighed about 10 kg, considerably smaller than living wombats. ''Warendja'' thought to be relatively basal amongst wombats, being the most primitive member to possess hypselodont (high crowned) cheek teeth. The morphology of the humerus of ''W. wakefieldi'' suggests that it engaged in scratch-digging.

References

Prehistoric vombatiforms Miocene genus first appearances Pleistocene genus extinctions Miocene mammals of Australia Pliocene mammals of Australia Pleistocene mammals of Australia Pleistocene marsupials Miocene marsupials Prehistoric marsupial genera Fossil taxa described in 1982 {{paleo-marsupial-stub