Diprotodon optatum

Diprotodon

At around 2800 kg in weight, the iconic Diprotodon optatum was the largest marsupial to ever have lived. This large quadrupedal herbivore first appears in the fossil record during the late Pliocene, but was widespread across much of Australia during the Pleistocene. It was one of the last surviving of the cohort of large-bodies animals that become extinct in the late Pleistocene.

Click the links below to view more bones from this species, including a complete hand and foot.

Skeletal element: Skull half in cast (young adult)
Specimen number: SAMA P33102
Geological age: Pleistocene
Locality/site: Redbanks Conservation Park
State/territory: South Australia

Click to view more scans of the bones of Diprotodon optatum.

Complete right pes (some bones may belong to other specimens).

Tarsals (right): cuboid | talus | calcaneus | navicular | entocuneiform | ectocuneiform

Metatarsals (right): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Pedal phalanges (right):  proximal 1 | proximal 2 | proximal 3 | proximal 4 | proximal 5 |middle 2 | middle 3 | middle 4 | middle 5 | ungual 1 | ungual 2 | ungual 3 | ungual 4 | ungual 5

Complete right manus (some bones may belong to other specimens)

Carpals (right): scaphoid |  triquetrum | trapezium | trapezoid | capitatum | hamatum | pisiform

Metacarpals (right): 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Manual phalanges (right): proximal 1 | proximal 2 | proximal 3 | proximal 4 | proximal 5 | middle 2 | middle 3 | middle 4 | middle 5 | ungual 1 | ungual 2 | ungual 3 | ungual 4 | ungual 5

Owen, R. (1870). XXIII. On the fossil mammals of Australia─ Part III. Diprotodon australis, Owen. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, (160), 519-578.

Price, G. J., & Sobbe, I. H. (2011). Morphological variation within an individual Pleistocene Diprotodon optatum Owen, 1838 (Diprotodontinae; Marsupialia): implications for taxonomy within diprotodontoids. Alcheringa, 35(1), 21-29.