Mammals

Abstract

Clemens (1968) considered that marsupials first colonised Australia in the late Cretaceous or early Cenozoic. The earliest fossil record is late Oligocene, this referring apparently to the possum-like diprotodont, Wynyardia bassiana, found at Table Cape, north-west Tasmania. In the Miocene, Tasmania became separated from the Australian mainland by Bass Strait (Jennings, 1959), but in the Pleistocene, Bass Strait may have flooded and drained on several occasions. The present flooding commenced about 11,000 years ago (Davies, 1965).