Sarcophilus
| Sarcophilus Temporal range: Pleistocene – recent
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| The Tasmanian devil is the only living species from Sarcophilus. | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Infraclass: | Marsupialia |
| Order: | Dasyuromorphia |
| Family: | Dasyuridae |
| Subfamily: | Dasyurinae |
| Tribe: | Dasyurini |
| Genus: | Sarcophilus F. Cuvier , 1837
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| Type species | |
Sarcophilus harrisii
, 1841 | |
| Species | |
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Sarcophilus is a genus of carnivorous marsupial best known for its only living member, the Tasmanian devil. Sarcophilus is Latin, meaning 'flesh-loving'.
There are four species of Sarcophilus. S. harrisii, weighing up to 10 kilograms more. The relationship between the four species is unclear; while some have proposed that S. harrisii may be a dwarf version of S. laniarius, others argue that it is a completely different species and that the two may have coexisted during the Pleistocene.
References
- Long, J., Archer, M., Flannery, T. and Hand, S. 2002. Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp 55. ISBN 0-8018-7223-5.