Neohelos stirtoni

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 : 328-329

† Neohelos

SPECIES SCORED: † Neohelos stirtoni .

GEOLOGICAL PROVENANCE OF SCORED SPECIMENS: Bullock Creek Local Fauna, Camfield Beds, Northern Territory, Australia.

AGE OF SCORED SPECIMENS: the Bullock Creek Local Fauna is interpreted to be middle Miocene based on biostratigraphy (see † Mutpuracinus above).

ASSIGNED AGE RANGE: 15.970 –11.630 Mya.

REMARKS: The diprotodontid † Neohelos stirtoni is represented by multiple well-preserved individuals, including juveniles, from the Bullock Creek Local Fauna (Murray et al., 2000a, 200b). Black (2008) and Black et al. (2013) reported the presence of † N. stirtoni in a number of Riversleigh Fanal Zone C sites, but this material is considerably less complete, and only Bullock Creek specimens have been used for scoring purposes here. † Neohelos is usually considered to be a member of the diprotodontid subfamily †Zygomaturinae (e.g., Stirton et al., 1967b; Black and Mackness, 1999; Murray et al., 2000a, 2000b; Black et al., 2013). However, the traditional subdivision of † Diprotodontidae into †Zygomaturinae and †Diprotodontinae is primarily based on features of P3 morphology that now appear to be more variable than previously suspected (Murray et al., 2000b; Price, 2008; Black and Hand, 2010; Price and Sobbe, 2011; Black et al., 2013).