Balbaroo

Balbaroo is an extinct genus of basal quadrupedal macropodiform marsupials that once lived in Australia during the Late Oligocene to the Middle Miocene. Known primarily from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland, and the Camfield Beds of the Northern Territory, Balbaroo species are considered part of the family Balbaridae, which represents an early branch of kangaroo evolution. Unlike modern kangaroos, members of the Balbaroo genus were quadrupedal browsers, adapted to dense forest environments. Four species are currently recognised, B. camfieldensis, B. fangaroo, B. gregoriensis, and B. nalima.

Balbaroo

Karen H. Black, Kenny J. Travouillon, Wendy Den Boer, Benjamin P. Kear, Bernard N. Cooke, Michael Archer · CC BY 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
BalbarinaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Marsupialia
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Marsupialia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Mammalia

Time the record covers

At least 7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 8 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 7 of 8 occurrencesMiocene28–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23.04 Mya15.98 Mya27.8 Mya11.1 Mya

8 occurrences of Balbaroo on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

8 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Camfield Beds — 17.12°S, 131.52°ESystem B — 19.01°S, 138.67°ECarl Creek Limestone — 19.07°S, 138.67°EUltima Limestone — 24.11°S, 134.32°E

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The named rock units Balbaroo has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Balbaroo and its relatives

Miocene

Where Balbaroo and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

45 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Balbaroo, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

4 references

Each of the 8 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Balbaroo

Credit
Karen H. Black, Kenny J. Travouillon, Wendy Den Boer, Benjamin P. Kear, Bernard N. Cooke, Michael Archer
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Balbaroo was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itBalbarinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Flannery et al. 1982