Chaeropus

Chaeropus, known as the pig-footed bandicoots, is a genus of small marsupials that became extinct during the 20th century. They were the only members of the family Chaeropodidae in order Peramelemorphia (bandicoots and bilbies), with unusually thin legs, yet were able to move rapidly. Two recognised species inhabited dense vegetation on the arid and semiarid plains of Australia. The genus' distribution range was later reduced to an inland desert region, where it was last recorded in the 1950s; it is now presumed extinct.

== Taxonomy == The genus was proposed by William Ogilby in a presentation to the Linnean Society of London of a new species tentatively assigned to a genus of bandicoots, the long-nosed Perameles, and was forwarded to John Gould, then at Sydney, for a more detailed examination. Ogilby submitted a drawing by collector Major Mitchell, who also supplied extensive remarks on the animal's form and habits, and identified the unusual pig-like toes of the forelimbs as the basis for a new genus. The collection of the specimen was made at the interior of New South Wales by Mitchell, on the banks of the Murray River.