Wakaleo
genus of mammals
Wakaleo (Diyari waka, "little", "small"; and Latin leo, "lion") is an extinct genus of medium-sized thylacoleonids that lived in Australia in the Late Oligocene and Miocene Epochs.
Taxonomy
Wakaleo was erected in 1974 by W. A. Clemens and M. Plane. Five species are known:
Wakaleo alcootaensis was found in the Miocene Waite Formation in the Northern Territory in 1974. It was slightly larger than the other two species.
Wakaleo oldfieldi was found by a group of scientists working in the Miocene Wipijiri Formation in southern Australia in 1971. They found a nearly complete left dentary which included a few well-preserved teeth.
Wakaleo pitikantensis described by Rauscher as the type species of the genus Priscileo in 1987 and placed with this genus in a revision published in 2017.
Wakaleo schouteni Gillespie, Archer & Hand, 2017, a mid-sized species of the genus.
Wakaleo vanderleuri was first found by field workers in 1967 in the Miocene Camfield Beds in the Northern Territory. Many more specimens have been found since then.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Wakaleo” as genus of mammals. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as genus of mammals. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q140445. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1971, 1987 and 2017.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wakaleo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.