Vombatiformes

Vombatiformes is a suborder of diprotodont marsupials that includes wombats, koalas, and extinct relatives. Its living members belong to two families: Vombatidae and Phascolarctidae.

Diprotodontia: A large order of marsupials characterized by a pair of enlarged lower incisors. Vombatiformes is one of the major suborders within this broader marsupial order.
Common wombat: A burrowing Australian marsupial, Vombatus ursinus, and the largest living wombat species. It is a familiar living representative of the wombat branch of Vombatiformes.
Wombat: A burrowing Australian marsupial in the family Vombatidae, with a compact body and powerful limbs. Wombats exemplify the digging adaptations of one living vombatiform lineage.
Australian megafauna: Large animals that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene and became extinct near its end. Several large extinct vombatiforms formed part of this fauna.
Marsupial phylogeny: The evolutionary relationships among living and extinct marsupials. Fossil discoveries can revise where extinct vombatiform families fit among their relatives.
Marsupial: A mammal whose young are born relatively undeveloped and typically continue developing while attached to a teat. Vombatiformes belongs to this mammalian lineage, with its characteristic reproductive biology.
Southern hairy-nosed wombat: A burrowing wombat species, Lasiorhinus latifrons, native to southern Australia. This species shows the diversity within the surviving family Vombatidae.
Koala diet: The koala’s specialized, low-energy feeding strategy based chiefly on eucalyptus leaves. Its demanding leaf diet contrasts with the varied diets of extinct vombatiforms.
Pleistocene: The geological epoch from about 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago, marked by repeated ice ages. Many prominent extinct vombatiforms are known from Pleistocene deposits.
Australian megafauna extinction: The loss of many large Australian animals during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. The disappearance of giant vombatiforms is part of the debate over this extinction event.

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