Page 182 - The Dinosaur Book and Other Wonders of the Prehistoric World (DK-Smithsonian)
P. 182

Mega-marsupials











                                                                                 Palorchestes

                                                                                                      This horse-sized
                                                                                                      herbivore used
                                                                                                      its mobile snout
                                                                                                      to gather leaves
                                                                                                      from bushes
                             Thylacoleo
                                                                                                      and low trees.
                                                                                                Thylacosmilus

                                                        The size of a lioness, and with
                                                        an extremely powerful bite,
                                                        Thylacoleo was the biggest
                                                        ice-age Australian predator.










                                                                            The huge saber teeth
                                                                            of this South American
                                                                            hunter were protected by
                                                                            bony plates extending
                                                                            from the lower jaw.



                                                                          This relative of the
                                                                          modern Tasmanian
                                                                          devil was a ferocious
                                                                          predator and scavenger,
                                                                          with very powerful jaws.
                                                                                           Thylacinus



                                                           Sarcophilus













                  Many early mammals were                       100 million years ago. Some, like the fearsome
                marsupials—mammals whose                        saber-toothed Thylacosmilus and the hyenalike
              half-formed young live in the mother’s            Borhyaena, continued to live in South America
           pouch until fully developed. Marsupials were         alongside placental mammals (mammals that give
           thriving in South America and Australia, which       birth to well-developed young). But there were no
           had once been part of the same continent, about      placental mammals in Australia, so marsupials





   US_180-181_Mega-marsupials.indd   180                                                                         10/04/18   3:35 PM
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