''Phascolarctos'' is a genus of

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a ...

s with one living species, the koala ''

Phascolarctos cinereus The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the wo ...

'', an iconic animal of Australia. Several extinct species of the genus are known from fossil material, these were also large tree dwellers that browsed on ''

Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as e ...

'' leaves.

Taxonomy

The genus was named by French zoologist

Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (; 12 September 1777 – 1 May 1850) was a French zoologist and anatomist. Life Blainville was born at Arques, near Dieppe. As a young man he went to Paris to study art, but ultimately devoted himself to natur ...

in 1816. The type species, the modern koala, was named as '' Lipurus cinereus'' by G. A. Goldfuss in 1817, later combined as ''Phascolarctos cinereus''. Goldfuss published this name with a reproduction of

John Lewin John William Lewin (1770 – 27 August 1819) was an English-born artist active in Australia from 1800. The first professional artist of the colony of New South Wales, he illustrated the earliest volumes of Australian natural history. Many of his ...

's 1803 illustration of the species in New South Wales. An accepted synonomy of other generic names referring to ''Phascolarctos'' was published in 1988. The koala is listed in national conservation legislation as "''Phascolarctos cinereus'' (combined populations of Qld, NSW and the ACT)", previously determined in 2012 to be "a species for the purposes of the EPBC act 1999" (

EPBC The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity Biodiversity or biol ...

).Determination that a distinct population of biological entities is a species for the purposes of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (132)
/ref> The koala was classified as

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

on the

Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biologi ...

, and reassessed as Vulnerable in 2014. The name is derived from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

''φάσκωλος (phaskolos)'', referring to a leather pouch or bag, and ''ἄρκτος (arktos)'', meaning "bear".

Description

''Phascolarctos'' is a genus of large arboreal marsupials that has specialised in leaves of ''Eucalyptus'', a poor quality and potentially toxic food source that is unavailable to most other native mammals. The extinct species are presumed to have similar diet and habits to the modern koala, the largest Australian folivore, which was exceeded in size by the even more robust ''P. stirtoni''. The tail of koalas is almost absent, an unusual characteristic for a tree climbing mammal, although other anatomical features are well suited to that habitat. They have some resemblance to the

wombat Wombats are short-legged, muscular quadrupedal marsupials that are native to Australia. They are about in length with small, stubby tails and weigh between . All three of the extant species are members of the family Vombatidae. They are ada ...

s, a family of large terrestrial marsupials which are allied with koalas as

Vombatiformes The Vombatiformes are one of the three suborders of the large marsupial order Diprotodontia. Seven of the nine known families within this suborder are extinct; only the families Phascolarctidae, with the koala, and Vombatidae, with three extan ...

. The fossil material referred to the extinct species of this genus is scarce and fragmentary. Some remains are tentatively referred to ''Phascolarctos stirtoni'', and the specimen for ''Phascolarctos maris'', a partial lower molar, was later suggested by Karen H. Black to be an example of variance within the ''P. stirtoni'' species.

Distribution

''Phascolarctos'' species have been discovered as fossil remains in several regions across southern and eastern Australia, in South Australia, Queensland and Victoria, and still occurs in those states and New South Wales. The modern koala is also known in the fossil record of the southwest of Australia and many other regions, but no occurrence of a living or extinct ''Phascolarctos'' species is recorded in the states of Tasmania and the Northern Territory. The existing koala ''P. cinereus'' once had a wide range across the continent, which substantially contracted as a consequence of climatic changes that included extremes such as glacial cycles. Extinction of regional populations includes their disappearance from Western Australia after the mid to late Pleistocene, where their previous success is indicated by numerous fossils discovered in the Leeuwin-Naturaliste region. The disappearance from Southwest Australia coincided with a change in the region's fire regimes. The temporal range of the ''Phascolarctus'' species includes fossils dated to the early

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

. The earliest record of ''P. cinereus'', the only species of the modern era, is dated to around 350 000 years ago. ''Phascolarctus'' is a remnant of a family that includes eight to ten genera, the Phascolarctidae, which diverged around 26 million years ago (during the Oligocene epoch). The records for '' Phascolarctos yorkensis'' (Pledge, 1992) include occurrences in Curramulka Local Fauna in South Australia and Wellington Caves in New South Wales, possibly datable to the late Miocene.

Classification

''Phascolarctos'' gives its name to the Phascolarctidae family, which allies a number of other genera that are now extinct. Anatomical similarities suggest the probably share a common ancestor of Vombatidae, represented by the living species of '' Vombatus'' and ''

Lasiorhinus ''Lasiorhinus'' is the genus containing the two extant hairy-nosed wombats, which are found in Australia. The southern hairy-nosed wombat is found in some of the semiarid to arid regions belt from New South Wales southwest to the South Australi ...

''; the wombats are their closest extant relations among the

Diprotodontia Diprotodontia (, from Greek "two forward teeth") is the largest extant order of marsupials, with about 155 species, including the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the hippopotamus-sized ...

order of marsupials. Family Phascolarctidae * Genus '' Nimiokoala'' * Genus '' Invictokoala'' * Genus '' Madakoala'' * Genus '' Litokoala'' * Genus '' Koobor'' * Genus '' Perikoala'' * Genus ''Phascolarctos'' **

Koala The koala or, inaccurately, koala bear (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae and its closest living relatives are the w ...

- ''Phascolarctos cinereus'' ** ''Phascolarctos maris'' N. S. Pledge. 1987.N. S. Pledge. 1987. Phoscolarctos maris, A new species of koala (Marsupialia: Phascolarctidae) from the Early Pliocene of South Australia. Possums and Opossums: Studies in Evolution 1:327-330 ** '' Phascolarctos stirtoni'' Bartholomai 1968. ** '' Phascolarctos yorkensis'' (Black and Archer, 1997) formerly ''Cundokoala'', now recognised as a junior synonym.K J Piper. 201
An early Pleistocene record of a giant koala (Phascolarctidae: Marsupialia) from western Victoria.
''Australian Mammalogy'' 27(2) 221–223 * Genus '' Priscakoala'' A previously recognised arrangement of infraspecific taxa may be summarised as * ''

'' Koala **''Phascolarctos cinereus adustus'',

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

1923. Mundubbera, QLD **''Phascolarctos cinereus cinereus'', (Goldfuss 1817) NSW **''Phascolarctos cinereus victor'', Troughton 1935. 'Booral', Victoria Three subspecies have been recognised within the existing species, based on specimens collected in Queensland, New South Wales and a "southern race" in Victoria. These may only represent clinal variation within the species at different latitudes, a conclusion reached by a genomic comparison in 2019 that found no support for a classification as three subspecies; the study instead supports a proposal for the population be recognised as a single

evolutionary significant unit An evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) is a population of organisms that is considered distinct for purposes of conservation. Delineating ESUs is important when considering conservation action. This term can apply to any species, subspecies, ge ...

for conservation purposes.Kjeldsen, S.R., Raadsma, H.W., Leigh, K.A. et al
Genomic comparisons reveal biogeographic and anthropogenic impacts in the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus): a dietary-specialist species distributed across heterogeneous environments
'' Heredity'' 122, 525–544 (2019).

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q209692 Marsupials of Australia Vombatiforms Marsupial genera Mammal genera with one living species Taxa named by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville