Quinkana

Quinkana is an extinct genus of mekosuchine crocodylians that lived in Australia from about 24 million to about 40,000 years ago. By the Pleistocene, Quinkana had become one of the top terrestrial predators of Australia, possessing long legs and ziphodont teeth (lateromedially compressed, recurved, and serrated). Quinkana comes from the "Quinkans", a legendary folk from Aboriginal myths.

Species
The species within Quinkana include: the type species Q. fortirostrum from Queensland of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, Q. babarra from Queensland of the Early Pliocene,[1] Q. timara from the Northern Territory of the Middle Miocene, and Q. meboldi from Queensland of the Late Oligocene.

Appearance
The older species (Q. meboldi and Q. timara) were small in size, about 3 m (10 ft), compared to the large Plio-Pleistocene species which evolved. Quinkana fortirostrum has been estimated to have reached 6 m (20 ft) in length,[2] making it at the time one of Australia's largest predators, second only to the giant monitor lizard, Megalania.

Quinkana is a genus within the subfamily Mekosuchinae. Other genera included in this family are: Australosuchus, Baru, Kambara, Mekosuchus, Pallimnarchus, and Trilophosuchus.