Paleontologists in Australia have discovered the fossilized remains of a new species in the extinct kangaroo genus Dorcopsoides.
The greater forest-wallaby (Dorcopsis hageni). Image credit: Melvin Toullec / CC BY-SA 4.0.
The newly-described species belongs to the tribe Dorcopsini, which is represented today by six species of New Guinean forest-wallaby.
However, the group has a patchy fossil record beginning on the Australian mainland in the Late Miocene epoch.
Two other species of fossil forest-wallabies have been described from Australia to date: Dorcopsoides buloloensis from the Early Pliocene of southeastern Australia; and Dorcopsoides fossilis from the Late Miocene Alcoota beds of the Waite Formation in the continental interior.
The new species, Dorcopsoides cowpatensis, was smaller than its congeners and differed in a combination of dental and skeletal character states.
“The forest-wallabies of New Guinea are little known to science, with basic information like diet and habitat uncertain for most of them,” said Flinders University’s Professor Gavin Prideaux.
“Living forest-wallabies are cute and peculiar, with slightly sad, whippet-like faces.”
“Their strong, curved tails are used like a fifth limb during slow movement, much like in grey kangaroos, except that the tail arches so only the very tip touches the ground.”
The fossils of Dorcopsoides cowpatensis were found at the location of Cowpat Hill on Alcoota Station in the southern Northern Territory.
“Forest-wallabies probably dispersed into New Guinea from Australia around 12 million years ago and vanished from Australia for reasons yet unknown sometime over the past 5 million years,” added Flinders University’s Dr. Isaac Kerr.
“During that time, the islands of New Guinea and mainland Australia were periodically connected by a ‘land-bridge’ due to lower sea levels, rather than separated by the flooded Torres Strait as they are today.”
“So, early Australian mammals moved into the rainforests of New Guinea.”
“When the Torres Strait flooded again, however, these populations of animals became disconnected from their Australian relatives, and so didn’t experience the dramatic drying-out that still defines much of Australia.”
“Dorcopsoides cowpatensis bears many of the features of the living forest-wallabies, but lived in a very different environment.”
“Its home was dry, scrubby bush, with widespread mallee and some denser woodland around ephemeral creeks and lakes.”
“This species is thought to have hopped swiftly, but only for short periods, moving from safer dense vegetation into more open areas to feed on leaves, fruits and fungi.”
The findings were published in the Alcheringa, an Australasian Journal of Palaeontology.
_____
Isaac A. R. Kerr & Gavin J. Prideaux. A new fossil kangaroo species of the genus Dorcopsoides (Marsupialia, Macropodinae) from the Late Miocene Ongeva Local Fauna, central Australia. Alcheringa, published online July 30, 2025; doi: 10.1080/03115518.2025.2521772
