Ekaltadeta
| Ekaltadeta Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Restoration of Ekaltadeta ima | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
| Order: | Diprotodontia |
| Family: | Hypsiprymnodontidae |
| Genus: | †Ekaltadeta Mike Archer & Flannery, 1985 |
| Species | |
| |
Ekaltadeta is an extinct genus of marsupials related to the modern musky rat-kangaroos. Ekaltadeta was present in what is today the Riversleigh formations in Northern Queensland from the Late Oligocene to the Miocene, and the genus includes three species. The genus is hypothesized to have been either exclusively carnivorous, or omnivorous with a fondness for meat, based on the chewing teeth found in fossils. This conclusion is based mainly on the size and shape of a large buzz-saw-shaped cheek-tooth, the adult third premolar, which is common to all Ekaltadeta.
Fossils of the animals include two near complete skulls, and numerous upper and lower jaws.
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