Malleodectes is an Extinction genus of unusual marsupial, first discovered in 2011 at Riversleigh, Queensland, Australia.
Taxonomy
The description of the new genus and two species, was published in 2011, based on fossilised type material discovered at a Riversleigh site. The type species is named
Malleodectes mirabilis and the second description published as
Malleodectes moenia; their generic epithet combines terms derived from the Latin,
malleo meaning hammer, and Ancient Greek,
dectes for biter, in reference to the unusual dentition.
Malleodectes was classified as the sole genus of Malleodectidae in a 2016 revision, with the family allied to Dasyuromorphia.
Description
A marsupial with highly specialised dentition, an enlarged premolar with a flattened profile used to hammer open the shells of snails found in its wet forested environment. This tooth was compared by the authors to a genus of skinks,
Cyclodomorphus, and concluded this represented evolutionary convergence with the modern skinks that have similar adaptation to their diet of snails; the authors gave a generalised description of this unusual animal as a "marsupial-skink".
from the Queensland Museum noticed similarities to the modern pink-tongued skink (
Cyclodomorphus gerrardii), a
reptile specialised for eating
.
This suggests that
Malleodectes was a specialised snail hunter. It could grow as large as a
ferret, and lived in the
Miocene, .
A leading author on the research and description of the species, professor Michael Archer, said of the type species, " Malleodectes mirabilis was a bizarre mammal, as strange in its own way as a koala or kangaroo …,".
