Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp.
Weirdodectes is an extinct genus of unusual marsupial from northeast Australia that lived during the Middle Miocene. Its fossils are known from a single site located at the Riversleigh World Heritage Area. Its diet is unknown, but is thought to have differed from that of other malleodectids. Only a single species is currently assigned to Weirdodectes, the type species W. napoleoni.

Uncredited · 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.
Time the record covers
At most 4.4 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 15.98 Mya and 11.63 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp. 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
1 occurrences- Miocene100%
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.
Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp. and its relatives
MioceneWhere Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp. and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
13 taxa- Archerops annectens1 site
- Australlus gagensis1 site
- Balbarinae1 site
- Bulungamayinae1 site
- Crash bandicoot1 site
- Dromornithidae1 site
- Egernia gillespieae1 site
- Ganguroo bilamina1 site
- Hipposideridae1 site
- Malleodectes1 site
- Malleodectes mirabilis1 site
- Nimbadon lavarackorum1 site
- Serpentes1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp., and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp.
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Weirdodectes napoleoni n. gen. n. sp. was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.