Wakaleo
- Bullock Creek, Lake Ngapakaldi, Alcoota station, Riversleigh, Australia
Wakaleo is a bag lion genus of the Miocene.
Features
Wakaleo had a size that was between the very small Priscileo and the lions large Thylacoleo. Weights vary between 15 and 35 kg for the findings of the Riversleigh fauna, there are also information up to 41.4 kg before. He thus reached the size of a present-day dingoes. Be more robust head is longer and narrower than that of Thylacoleo, but shorter and wider than that of Priscileo. Strikingly, the very large lower incisors and the large front premolars. The entire back row of teeth took to the back in size. From Priscileo Wakaleo be distinguished by the reduction of the first premolars and the last ( fourth ) molars.
Paleobiology
Wakaleo represents the largest carnivores in the Riversleigh fauna dar. but anatomical studies show that he had no such high bite force as his relatives Priscileo and Thylacoleo, were calculated as 673 Newton, what a Beißkraftquotienten, based on body size and muscle mass of 139 results. This value is in the range of today's wolves. Maybe Wakaleo lived as scavengers on forest edges.
System
Wakaleo is a genus within the now extinct Thylacoleonidae the bag lions, where they will be assigned their own subfamily Wakaleoninae that differs from the reduction of the first premolar of the sister group of the Thylacoleoninae. She was mainly distributed in the Miocene in Australia. There are three known types: Wakaleo vanderleueri Clemens & Plane, 1974 lived in the middle Miocene, is different Lokalfaunen Riversleigh, but also the Bullock Creek Local Fauna in the Northern Territory to. Wakaleo oldfieldi Clemens & Plane, 1974 lived in the early Miocene and is also represented in the Lokalfaunen Riversleigh, but also occurs in the Kutjamarpu - local fauna in South Australia. It is sometimes performed as a synonym for Wakaleo vanderleueri. Wakaleo alcootaensis Archer & Rich, 1982 lived in the late Miocene and part of Alcoota - local fauna in the Northern Territory to. The genus was first described in 1974 by the American zoologist William A. Clemens and MD Plane. The word comes from doing a waka Aboriginalsprache, meaning " small", leo is the term for "lion". Thus Wakaleo is the "little lion".