Wakaleo vanderleuri
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Wakaleo vanderleuri |
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Prehistoric
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†Wakaleo vanderleuri Clemens & Plane, 1974 |
Wakaleo vanderleuri is the name given to fossils of a marsupial lion, living in Australia from about 16 to 10 million years ago. It was not related to real cats, being a marsupial like its closest living relatives, wombats and the Koala. This diprotodont is hypothesized to have been an omnivore which ate significant amounts of meat, perhaps more like a bear in diet and habit than like an actual lion. It did not actually have large canine-like fangs, producing some controversy regarding just how much it actually preyed on living animals. The meat-eating assumption is based largely on the pattern of molar chewing teeth in its cheeks.
The type species fossils were originally found in the Bollock Creek area.