Reconstruction of the 25-million-year-old marsupial ecosystem Illustration courtesy of Peter Schouten
A mini koala meandered through central Australia about 25 million years ago. The newly discovered species belonged to a community that contained the oldest known members of the koala family 鈥 and it could provide crucial missing information on the mysterious early evolution of marsupials.
The novel species 鈥 which has been named Lumakoala blackae 鈥 is represented by just by a dozen ancient teeth, mostly upper molars, found in fossil-bearing rocks near Alice Springs.
鈥淭eeth are good because they provide a huge amount of evolutionary and dietary information,鈥 says
