THE MARSUPIALS OF QUEENSLAND. 
57 
Wood- Jones considers that the primitive Australian Marsupials were 
polyprotodont and didactylous, and that the diprotodont group arose as a 
specialisation in the syndactylous section. He therefore uses the Sub-Orders 
Didactyla and Syndactyla in preference to Polyprotodontia and Diprotodontia. 6 
Wood- Jones’s classification appears to reflect more correctly than the terms 
in general use the phylogenetic development of our marsupials. 
In view of the distinction between our phalangers and the true opossums 
of America, the name possum, by which our species are most commonly known, 
has been deliberately adopted in this list. 
As descriptions of the older species are readily obtained in Oldfield 
Thomas’s Catalogue of the Marsupialia (British Museum, 1888), only references 
to recent literature are given. 
LIST OF QUEENSLAND PRESENT-DAY MARSUPIALS. 
Family MACROPODIML 
Macropus giganteus (Zimmerman). Great Grey Kangaroo. Queensland, including 
Stradbroke Island. 
Macropus melanops Gould. Black-faced Kangaroo. 
A. S. Le Souef (Austr. Zool. iii, 1923, p. 148) considers this as 
specifically distinct from M. giganteus. 
Macropus robustus Gould. Wallaroo. 
Pending a revision of the Wallaroos none of the ten subspecies 
recorded are listed here. 
Macropus rufus (Desmarest). Red Kangaroo. Western Queensland. 
Macropus rufus dissimulatus Rothschild (1905). Western Queensland. 
Mr. J. Edgar Young obtained two skins of this subspecies from the 
St. George district. It was described by Rothschild in Nov. Zool., xii, 
p. 508. 
Macropus agilis (Gould). Coast or Agile Wallaby. Eastern Queensland ; extends 
as far south as Stradbroke Island. 
Macropus ruficollis (Desmarest). Red-necked Wallaby. Southern Queensland; 
extends as far north as the Burnett and Upper Dawson. H. H. Finlayson, 
of Adelaide, who has placed on record many observations on this wallaby 
(Trans. Roy. Soc. South Aus., liv, 1930, pp. 47-56, plates i-iii), collected 
specimens from the Upper Dawson. 
Macropus ualabatus (Lesson & Gamier). Swamp or Black-tailed Wallaby. 
South-eastern Queensland. 
1923: Wood-Jones, The Mammals of South Australia, part i., p. 83. 
