Product Code Database
Tingamarra is an extinct genus of mammals from Australia. Its age, lifestyle, and relationships remain controversial.
By the shape of the found tooth, Tingamarra was first classified as a condylarth. This is a primitive order of mammals which are ancestral to modern . If this interpretation is correct, Tingamarra appears to be the only land-based Eutheria mammal to have arrived to Australia before about 8 million years ago. The only other placental mammals in Australia that arrived before humans are and .
Most Australian mammals are marsupials instead. Before Tingamarra was found, it was hypothesised that marsupials had done well in Australia only because for many millions of years they had no placentals to compete with.
However, both the age and placental nature of Tingamarra were subsequently challenged by other researchers. Woodburne et al. argued that: 1) the true age of Murgon fossil site is the late Oligocene, and 2) that indeed neither shape nor microstructure of the tooth do not allow to distinguish whether Tingamarra was marsupial or placental. Then Rose concluded that at present there is no undoubted evidence to change the established views.
|
|
