''Thylacinus potens'' ("powerful pouched animal") was the largest species of the family

Thylacinidae Thylacinidae is an extinct family (biology), family of carnivorous marsupials from the order Dasyuromorphia. The only species to survive into modern times was the thylacine (''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), which became Extinction, extinct in 1936. ...

, originally known from a single poorly preserved fossil discovered by Michael O. Woodburne in 1967 in a

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

locality near

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

. It preceded the most recent species of

thylacine The thylacine (; binomial name ''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, was a carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmani ...

by 4–6 million years, and was 5% bigger, was more robust and had a shorter, broader

skull The skull, or cranium, is typically a bony enclosure around the brain of a vertebrate. In some fish, and amphibians, the skull is of cartilage. The skull is at the head end of the vertebrate. In the human, the skull comprises two prominent ...

. Its size is estimated to be similar to that of a

grey wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...

; the head and body together were around 5 feet long, and its teeth were less adapted for shearing compared to those of the now-extinct thylacine.

Taxonomy

The description of the species was published in 1967, the author Michael O. Woodburne distinguishing the new thylacine with the epithet ''potens'' for what he interpreted as a "powerful" predator. The evidence for the species emerged from geological and palaeontological research into the fossil fauna of the Alcoota site.

Description

Thylacinus potens model in the Australian Musuem

A larger species of ''

Thylacinus ''Thylacinus'' is a genus of extinct carnivorous marsupials in the family Thylacinidae. The only recent member was the thylacine The thylacine (; binomial name ''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), also commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or ...

'', greater in size and weight than the thylacine ('' Thylacinus cynocephalus'') and only exceeded by '' Thylacinus megiriani'', the largest of the genus. The animal was similar to a dog in the form of its body and jaws, and probably able to kill prey such as wallabies and other herbivores larger than itself. More specimens were described by

Adam Yates Adam Richard Yates (born 7 August 1992) is a British professional road and track racing cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam . Yates placed fourth overall at the 2016 Tour de France and became the first British rider to win the Young rider clas ...

in 2014, also discovered at the Alcoota site, revealing greater variety within the species and revising the weight estimates to greater than 35 kilograms. This material was found in a newly excavated site, named as "Shattered Dreams", that was opened by a backhoe to allow the extraction of specimens. The new ''T. potens'' specimens were a left dentary and maxilla which included the previously unknown anterior section of the dentition. The teeth of the new material exhibited a more gracile form than that previously assigned to ''T. potens'', displaying a closer resemblance to ''T. cynocephalus''. An examination of tooth wear that suggests

durophagy Durophagy is the eating behavior of animals that consume Seashell, hard-shelled or exoskeleton-bearing organisms, such as corals, shelled mollusks, or crabs. It is mostly used to describe fish, but is also used when describing reptiles, including ...

, probably bone-cracking behaviour, is interpreted as an evolutionary recent practice, to which the dentition was only partially suited, or a consequence of the ecological circumstances that created the mass assemblage of fossils at the same site. The modern thylacine was not recorded as cracking bones as part of its regular feeding habits, but known as a consumer of carrion, and the individual ''T. potens'' may have encountered a mass death during a period of drought in the sub-tropical Alcoota region. The revision of ''Thylacinus potens'' by Yates in 2014 concluded that the characteristics were closest to those of the thylacine, the most derived characters of the thylacinid phylogeny.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thylacinus Potens Prehistoric mammals of Australia Prehistoric thylacines Miocene marsupials Fossil taxa described in 1967 Taxa named by Michael Woodburne