Quinkana

Quinkana is an extinct genus of mekosuchine crocodylians that lived in Australia from about 24 million to about 40,000 years ago. By the Pleistocene, Quinkana had become one of the top terrestrial predators of Australia, possessing long legs and ziphodont teeth (lateromedially compressed, recurved, and serrated). Quinkana comes from the "Quinkans", a legendary folk from Aboriginal myths.

Quinkana
Temporal range: Late Oligocene–Late Pleistocene
Life restoration of Quinkana fortirostrum
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Crocodilia
Family: Crocodylidae
Subfamily: †Mekosuchinae
Genus: †Quinkana
Molnar, 1981
Species
  • †Q. fortirostrum Molnar, 1981 (type)
  • †Q. babarra Willis & Mackness, 1996
  • †Q. timara Megirian, 1994
  • †Q. meboldi Willis, 1997

Species

The species within Quinkana include: the type species Q. fortirostrum from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Queensland,[1] Q. babarra from the Early Pliocene of Queensland,[2] Q. timara from the Middle Miocene of the Northern Territory, and Q. meboldi from the Late Oligocene of Queensland.

Description

Most specimens of Quinkana were small in size, about 3 m (10 ft), though, a fragmentary, Pliocene-aged specimen is estimated to have reached up to 6 m (20 ft) in length,[3] making it at the time one of Australia's largest predators, second only to the giant monitor lizard, Megalania. There were few ecosystems that Quinkana crocodiles were a rare component. This includes the Darling Downs ecosystems of the late Pliestocene period.[1]

Taxonomy

As stated earlier, Quinkana is a genus within the subfamily Mekosuchinae. Other genera included in this family include Australosuchus, Baru, Kambara, Mekosuchus, Pallimnarchus, and Trilophosuchus.

References
  1. Sobbe, I. H.; Price, G. J.; Knezour, R. A. (2013) A ziphodont crocodile from the late Pleistocene King Creek catchment, Darling Downs, Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Nature, 56 2: 601-606.
  2. Willis, P.M.A.; Mackness, B. (1996). "Quinkana babarra, a new species of ziphodont mekosuchine crocodile from the early Pliocene Bluff Downs Local Fauna, Northern Australia, with a revision of the genus". Proceedings and Journal of the Linnean Society of New South Wales. 116: 143–151. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
  3. Molnar, R. E. (2004). Dragons in the Dust: The Paleobiology of the Giant Monitor Lizard Megalania. Indiana University Press. pp. 174–175. ISBN 0-253-34374-7. OCLC 52775128.


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