Zaglossus hacketti

Zaglossus hacketti is an extinct species of long-beaked echidna from Western Australian known from the Pleistocene. It is known only from a limited skeletal remains (Augee et al 2006). It was about 1 meters in length and probably weighed about 30 kg (66 lb). This makes it the largest monotreme known to have ever lived. There is no known cranial material and thus it is difficult to place Z. hacketti into Monotreme phylogeny. As well due to the lack of cranial material, placement of Z. hacketti into the modern long-beaked echidna genus Zaglossus is uncertain (Auguee et al 2006; Siegel et al. 1999).

References

Augee, M. L.; Gooden, B.; Musser, A. (January 2006). Echidna: Extraordinary Egg-laying Mammal. Csiro Publishing. pp. 18–20. ISBN 978-0-643-09204-4. OCLC 65199910.

"Zaglossus hacketti - extinct giant echidna". Megafauna. Tourism Western Australia. Archived from the original on 2014-01-26. Retrieved 2014-04-28.

Siegel, J. M.; Manger, P. R.; Nienhuis, R.; Fahringer, H. M.; Shalita, T.; Pettigrew, J. D. (June 1999). "Sleep in the platypus" (PDF). Neuroscience. 91 (1): 391–400. doi:10.1016/S0306-4522(98)00588-0. PMID 10336087.