Maokopia Temporal range: Late Pleistocene
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
Order: | Diprotodontia |
Family: | †Diprotodontidae |
Subfamily: | †Zygomaturinae |
Genus: | †Maokopia Flannery, 1992 |
Species: | †M. ronaldi
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Binomial name | |
†Maokopia ronaldi Flannery, 1992
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Maokopia is an extinct genus of Zygomaturinae from the Late Pleistocene of Irian Jaya, New Guinea. It is known from a partial skull and was a comparatively small species of diprotodontid, weighing 100 kg.[1] Murray (1992) suggested that it was most closely related to Hulitherium. The teeth indicate a diet of hard ferns and grasses that still grow in the alpine meadows of the area (Long et al., 2002).