Sarcophilus

Sarcophilus Temporal range: Pleistocene – recent
The Tasmanian devil is the only living species from Sarcophilus.
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Infraclass:	Marsupialia
Order:	Dasyuromorphia
Family:	Dasyuridae
Subfamily:	Dasyurinae
Tribe:	Dasyurini
Genus:	Sarcophilus F. Cuvier, 1837
Type species
Sarcophilus harrisii Boitard, 1841
Species
S. harrisii †S. laniarius †S. moornaensis †S. prior De Vis, 1883

Sarcophilus is a genus of carnivorous marsupial best known for its only living member, the Tasmanian devil. Sarcophilus is Latin, meaning 'flesh-loving'.

There are four species of Sarcophilus. S. laniarius and S. moornaensis are only known from fossils from the Pleistocene. S. laniarius was larger than the contemporary, and only surviving, species S. harrisii, weighing up to 10 kilograms more. The relationship between the four species is unclear; while some have proposed that S. harrisii may be a dwarf version of S. laniarius, others argue that it is a completely different species and that the two may have coexisted during the Pleistocene.

References

• Long, J., Archer, M., Flannery, T. and Hand, S. 2002. Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp 55. ISBN 0-8018-7223-5.