Encyclopedia of Life · EOL (see source)
Phascolarctos
Sign in to savePhascolarctos is a genus of marsupials with one extant species, the koala Phascolarctos cinereus, 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 leaves.
Species
GENUS
- KingdomAnimalia
- PhylumChordata
- ClassMammalia
- OrderDiprotodontia
- FamilyPhascolarctidae
Phascolarctos (del griego antiguo phaskolos bolsa o saco y arktos oso) es un género de marsupiales diprotodontos de la familia Phascolarctidae compuesta por tres especies, de las cuales solo una (P. cinereus, comúnmente conocido por koala) no se ha extinguido. La mayor especie era el P. stirtoni o koala gigante, que vivía en el Pleistoceno. Esta especie se conoce únicamente por los fósiles encontrados en el lago Eyre y Tarkarooloo en el sur de Australia. Sobre la tercera especie, el P. maris, se conoce poco.
via GBIF
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 3
- Family
- Phascolarctidae
- Collections
- UCMP, NHMUK
- Recorded in
- Australia
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
5 sectionsContents
- Taxonomy
- Description
- Distribution
- Classification
- References
Phascolarctos is a genus of marsupials with one extant species, the koala Phascolarctos cinereus, 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 leaves.
==Taxonomy== The genus was named by French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1816.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Phascolarctos” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.