Palorchestes

Palorchestes ("ancient leaper") is an extinct genus of large terrestrial, herbivorous Australian marsupial of the family Palorchestidae, living from the Miocene through to the Late Pleistocene. Like other palorchestids, it had highly retracted nasal region suggesting that it had a prehensile lip, as well as highly unusual clawed forelimbs that were used to grasp vegetation.

== Taxonomy == thumb|left|1927 life restoration by [[Charles R. Knight inaccurately showing Palorchestes as a giant kangaroo]] The generic name was coined in 1873 by anatomist Richard Owen, who first found what he thought was the fragmentary jaw of a prehistoric kangaroo and derived the name from ancient Greek terms for "ancient" and "leaper". Despite Owen explicitly stating the etymology of the name in his description, palaeontologist Harold Fletcher published a translation as "the ancient dancer" in 1945. When more postcranial elements were found, Palorchestes was realized as not a macropod, but a diprotodontid. Owen's description as a giant kangaroo was revised in 1958 by Jack T. Woods of the Queensland Museum, allying the genus to the Diprotodontia order.