What is a Marsupial Lion?
The Marsupial Lion (Thylacoleo carnifex) is an extinct meat-eating marsupial from Australia which lived between 1,600,000 and about 40,000 years ago. It is considered one of the most specialized mammalian carnivores ever to have lived. Australian paleontologist Stephen Wroe has claimed it would have defeated an African lion in a fight to the death, based on analysis of its skeleton and its inferred killing style. The Marsupial Lion was the largest marsupial carnivore ever to exist in Australia, about the size of a female African lion or a tiger. The Marsupial Lion was a robust animal, with powerful jaws and forelimbs. Like another extinct marsupial carnivore, the thylacine, the Marsupial Lion had a jaw that could open larger than any mammals and gave more room for the attachment of jaw muscles. Based on extrapolations from its skull, scientists have determined that, pound for pound, the Marsupial Lion had the strongest bite force of any mammal. Its “bolt-cutter” canines would have been
