Priscileo roskellyae, Beck & Voss & Jansa, 2022

Beck, Robin M. D., Voss, Robert S. & Jansa, Sharon A., 2022, Craniodental Morphology And Phylogeny Of Marsupials, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2022 (457), pp. 1-353 : 330

† Lekanoleo

SPECIES SCORED: † Lekanoleo roskellyae (type and only described species).

GEOLOGICAL PROVENANCE OF SCORED SPECIMENS: White Hunter site (Riversleigh Faunal Zone A), and Upper, Dirk’s Towers, and Camel Sputum sites (Riversleigh Faunal Zone B), Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia.

AGE OF SCORED SPECIMENS: Riversleigh Faunal zones A and B are interpreted to be late Oligocene and early Miocene respectively, based on biostratigraphy (see above). We have assigned the entire age range of the late Oligocene to early Miocene (Chattian to Serravallian; Cohen et al., 2013 [updated]).

ASSIGNED AGE RANGE: 27.820 –15.970 Mya.

REMARKS: † Lekanoleo roskellyae is one of the oldest thylacoleonids known from relatively complete craniodental material, with a single well-preserved cranium (QM F23453) collected from Upper Site in Riversleigh Faunal Zone B, and additional craniodental fragments known from sites in Riversleigh Faunal zones A and B (Gillespie, 1997, 2007; Gillespie et al., 2020). In her original description, which was of the upper dentition of QM F23453 only, Gillespie (1997) referred this taxon to the existing genus † Priscileo . More recently, Gillespie et al. (2020) described the cranial morphology of QM F23453, provided additional information on the dentition, and referred this taxon to a new genus, † Lekanoleo. † Lekanoleo roskellyae is notable for its small size relative to most other known thylacoleonids, with an estimated body mass of 1.8 kg based on dental measurements (Gillespie et al., 2016) and 2.7– 3.1 kg based on skull length (Gillespie et al., 2020); however, † Microleo attenboroughi, from the early Miocene (Riversleigh Faunal Zone B) Neville’s Garden site at Riverseigh, which is known from much less complete remains, and so has not been included in this study, is even smaller, with an estimated body mass of 590 g based on dental measurements (Gillespie et al., 2016).