MEMOIBS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM, Vol. YII, Part 11. 

 (ISSUED FEBRUARY 11, 1921.) 



A NEW GENUS OF FOSSIL MARSUPIALS. 



By IIeber a. Longman, F.L.S., 

 Director of the Queensland Museum. 



(Plates IV-VII.) 



In 1915, when describing a giant turtle from the Queensland Cretaceous 

 Formations, the writer ventured to forecast that, when our areas were better 

 known, novelties rivalling the grotesque monsters of other lands would be 

 exhumed. No new vertebrate material has yet been received from these 

 Cretaceous sources, but remains from the Post-Tertiary deposits on the 

 Darling Downs, which form the subject of this paper, exhibit a large marsupial 

 with remarkable cranial contours. In life this mammal must have been bizarre 

 as a monster in an artist's realm of phantasy. Here is a member of the 

 Nototherium group with a skull the maximum width of which exceeds the 

 maximum length by 46 mm. 



This extreme brachycephalous condition is mainly the result of masseteric 

 processes or large inferior lateral extensions of the anterior part of the jugal, 

 which flare widely outwards on each side of the head, almost at right angles 

 to the sagittal plane, at the junction of the infratemporal bar with the zygomatic 

 processes of the maxilla. For reasons to be subsequently set out, it is suggested 

 that this unusual development of the zygomatic arches was associated with the 

 presence of large cheek-pouches. 



Diagnosis op New Genus. — The extraordinary development of the 

 inferior lateral processes of the anterior part of the zygomata and the 

 architecture of the very prominent suborbital platform, which acts as a buttress, 

 demand generic recognition. These characters are also associated with a 

 subtriangular upper premolar (dealt with in detail later). 



EURYZYGOMA. genus new. 



De Vis associated with the mandibles of his Nototherium dunense (1887, 

 p. 1065, and 1888, pp. 111-116),* two cranial fragments (Nos. 12622 and 12618) 

 which are obviously of the type of our new material, and which also came 



* In this pa2:er references are noted in the manner suggested in a circular recently 

 issued by the Committee of the British Association on Zoological Bibliography. 

 E 



